Campus Cooks Helps Upgrade College Meal Plans
Content Provided By Campus Cooks
With Back to School season in high gear, many college students are heading back to school in search of a quality meal to accompany their higher education.
Gone are the days of frozen pizza and PB&J, replaced with in-house chefs that have the ability to whip up daily meals consisting of seared pork loin with mango salsa, sautéed zucchini and squash, and roasted red peppers for dinner. Lunches may consist of chicken parmesan sandwiches accompanied by fried mushrooms with dipping sauce, three bean and garden veggie mix with carrot and coriander soup.
This is the new existence for many college students participating in Greek Life, as food service at fraternity and sorority houses budget away from the typical cafeteria settings to adapting a more intimate and defined meal for students who are constantly on-the-go in the stress-filled environment of college life.
Bill Reeder, President and Founder of Campus Cooks, first became interested in Greek Life food service while attending Northwestern University in Evanston. His fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, went through the gamut of issues when it came to getting the proper meal – chef turnover, stealing, and nearly burning down the chapter house. At that time, Reeder, decided that it was time to take matters in to his own hands, hiring a local caterer to manage the food at his fraternity house, and with that, an idea was born.
Fast forward over 20 years later, and the process is simple: Open lines of communication between house leadership and the house's assigned chef leads to a discussion of the likes and dislikes of the particular house, as well as menu creation that changes from week-to-week. Food choices often vary with the women of sororities favoring "salad foods" and fraternities often seeking out "big proteins". In addition to regular meal time options, the service also manages the house's special events that can range from charity events to the recruitment process, affording the house leadership more time to focus on the students.
However, with each house comes its own set of challenges, as many students face dietary restrictions and other issues, as well as the age old problem of being too busy to eat. With technology ever evolving, students need only to lean on a mobile application (available for iPhones and Android), to order a custom meal after hours, inquire about carry out options, and provide feedback directly to their chef, who can change menus on the fly. A House Director at the University of Kentucky said, "[Campus Cooks] has been great in providing for those who are vegetarian, have food restrictions, allergies, etc."
Today, Campus Cooks is located in multiple states nationwide, from Oregon to Massachusetts, Minnesota to Texas with house sizes ranging in size from 20 to 200 students.
Parents, think twice when adding a food allowance to your son or daughter's credit card this year.
