By Theresa Schliep
While students can temporarily count on drinking Sodexo coffee with their Sodexo pancakes and sausage for breakfast, the Fordham community cannot count on eating the same food next fall semester.
Fordham University’s culinary, catering and nutritional services contract with Sodexo is to continue to provide dining services to both Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses and will not participate in interviews nor answer questions until the bidding process is completed, per information provided by John Azzopardi, the resident district manager at Rose Hill.
Fordham issued a Request for Proposals, (RFP), on Friday, Dec. 4, 2015. Since Fordham released the RFP to the community, no information has been provided by the university, Sodexo or any of its representatives.
Emails for comments to Corina Tse, GSB ’16 and President of the Student Culinary Council John Burns, Catering Manager Bill Haag, Purchasing Manager and Deming Yaun, university contract liaison, were unable to comment at this time.
Sodexo also prohibits employees from answering any questions.
Sodexo has provided culinary, catering and nutritional services to Fordham for the past thirty years, despite multiple controversies regarding its contracts.
In March of 2011, the Student Deli at Fordham received a letter grade of a C for live roaches and unsanitized food preparation surfaces. New York City health inspectors closed two other Rose Hill dining services for violations.
Consequently, in 2012, the Princeton Review ranked Fordham’s food as the national worst. In 2013, the Princeton Review ranked it fifth worst, and in 2014, seventh worse. It stayed at seventh worst in 2015 but improved to thirteenth worst in the Princeton Review’s 2016 rankings.
As a result of the controversies surrounding Sodexo’s culinary services, in 2013, the university stipulated that they would maintain their contract with Sodexo but Sodexo would incur three million dollars in fines if Fordham did not improve in rankings within the next few years. It is not clear if or when Sodexo will pay those fines.
In early december, a petition demanding that Fordham University become “Sodexo-Free” began circulating on the internet.
In an email in response to questions regarding the contract, Azzopardi claimed that many of the allegations stated in the aforementioned petition are “not factually accurate.” The petition claimed that there are documented cases of Sodexo serving horse meat as “beef” in England. Azzopardi said that “Sodexo operations in the U.S. do not source beef products from Europe; moreover, all of our raw and frozen ground beef products are sourced domestically.”
The petition highlights a cancellation of a $1.2 billion contract between the U.S. Marine Corps and Sodexo. Azzopardi said, “We continue to operate mess hall contracts on both the East and West Coasts and have done so since the beginning of our contract in 2003.” It appears, that after controversy surrounding Sodexo’s working conditions, the U.S. Marine Corps did in fact lose a $764 million deal for operations on the west coast of the United States in February of 2011 until August 2011, when the caterer announced it was selected for a seventh year, $766 million contract to cater 20 mess halls on the west coast, according to the company itself.
Azzopardi, however, did not respond to the referenced University of Michigan study linking private food management and poor testing scores.
Similarly, Simon’s Deli, a local business on Arthur Ave that has provided food for Fordham students since March 2007, has made a petition for students to support a potential Simon’s Deli operation on campus. The petition, published on Dec. 4, 2015, claims that if Fordham allows a deli to open on campus, 10 percent of profits will go to Fordham Athletics.
FWIW, the food at Fordham has always been rank. That’s why the bars on Webster Avenue and Belmont deli’s did such a booming business. My suggestion — require that the Administration, Administrative Equerries and Assorted Hangers On eat there 3 times a day, 5 days a week, and pay full rates out of their own pockets.
I like how Azzopardi from Sodexo defended his company. Even if these allegations about horse meat and marine contract weren’t true, he cant deny the fact that the food they serve sucks. He essentially tried to doge the bullet by focusing on the allegations as opposed to defending how his company’s food isnt bad (which he knows he will harrd time proving). The caf since the new contract in 2013 didnt improve at all. Instead, Sodexo have been serving us low-grade food as they used to and cutting corners as much as they can. To name a few. The bagel station used to have actual smoked salmon (limited in quantity). Later they replaced that with salmon cream cheese instead. And why the heck do we have omelete at the international station all day long? Is it really because people are obesssed with the breakfast? Or it is bc it is cheaper for Sodexo to serve students some sloppy eggs and veggies than actually making the effort to give us real food? They change around the setups of the cafe (like do you notice how often the order system at the grill changes) to give student the deception that they are making an effort to improve the food. But it isnt fooling anyone. Sodexo charges students 10+ dollar per meal in the caf, which quality of the food isnt on par with the price at all.
i don’t see many bidders coming in, Fordham needs to be stern, and a tough negotiator.
Is Aramark one of the bidders on the RFP?
I have no idea how Fordham went up to 13th worst food because I can honestly say that Sodexo’s food did not improve one bit since my Freshmen year (I’m a senior now). If anything, they gave us lower values for our meal plans and stripped down the fruits section (which had a lot more fruits on the shelves before). Sodexo has to go.
It is probably because of the new students who aren’t fed up with the food yet. To be fair, the caf isn’t that bad if u only go there for a few weeks. But it is the lack of variety and repeated low nutrition options that make people get sick of Sodexo. I remember back in the beginning of fall 2013, the Ram published a survey noting that improved satisfaction among students (titled Sodexo finally stepped back its game if I remember correctly). I chuckled when I saw the article. Surely people (especially the freshman class) would somehow find the food somehow decent in the first month of school. But think about eating at the caf for a year or more?
Sodexo must go. It is unacceptable to be on the worst food list for an institution like Fordham. In addition to the slop they serve, the Lincoln Center cafeteria is the most depressing place to eat in NYC. Freshman 15 ? maybe 30-40 pounds with the heart clogging fried garbage that is served by Sodexo. Look at Boston College or NYU for guidance Fordham. Bye Sodexo ….
If Fordham, new vendors or Sodexo, continue to hire the same local unmotivated staff, the problems will continue no matter who wins the concession
This is exactly right.