Around the United States, and even here in our very own Covenant College, stores and restaurants have struggled to get the food resources that they need. However, it appears that most Covenant students are unaware of the shortages on our own campus.
“In the Blink it is more obvious,” Olivia Van Der Pol ‘23 said. She attributed this to the fact that the blink has a smaller, more consistent menu, while in the great hall there is little to no consistency.
As a place where people place orders for specific items, the supply inconsistency is more obvious in the Blink. For example, at the time that this article is being written, the Blink is out of their pumpkin spice coffee flavoring. With the beginning of the fall season, this is a very popular flavor, so it becomes very obvious. The Great Hall does not have this same issue, because students are just served whatever food was made that day.
With the Great Hall, the supply struggles are also more easily masked by the fact that students tend to come in waves. “We might have the same meat for the whole meal but it might be in three different forms,” said Junior Class President Sarah Murphy, a member of Covenant’s Food Service Committee. “They’re sacrificing consistency so that they have enough food for all of us.” What this means is that while a specific dish may be chicken, it may vary between the white meat and the dark meat, or they may have different brands of chicken fingers.
There are, however, some downsides to an inconsistent food supply between waves of students. “Sometimes people will say dinner was really good and then I go in, and that really good thing ran out and now we have the back up,” Murphy said.
Another area that Covenant Dining is having supply struggles with is staffing. They are short staffed, and this is affecting food quality. An example of this is that they are now having to purchase pre-cut fruit rather than buying whole fruit and slicing them in house. Buying things pre-sliced means that it just simply is not as fresh and therefore not as good. However, in order to get the main bulk of foods out, something has to go.
Covenant Dining is working as hard as they can, but due to shortages in food supply and staff, there is much that is out of their control. At a food committee meeting, a discussion suggested one of the ways that Covenant can seek to help Covenant Dining is by working for them. They pay better than work study and include end of semester bonuses, while still being flexible around class schedules.
Another way to help is to show grace towards these hard working individuals. There seems to be only a small decrease in quality that is felt in the food, even throughout all of these struggles.
“Since I have been here it has been the same,” Van Der Pol said.
This does not mean that if a student has a legitimate concern about the food or the quality of the food that they cannot speak up about it.
“I’m all for making requests for better food and making your concerns known” Murphy said. But she also cautioned, “A lot of these things are out of their control, and even if it isn’t our favorite food, it is still food.”
The Covenant Dining staff desires to create better quality food and listen to concerns and even complaints, but they can only do so much.