M
ind your
Business
I would like to know what other universities are doing to
control the portions their staff gives customers. I am
looking for how best to control the size and amount of
what we give them. What do you do on your campus?
- Jennifer Krise, assistant manager of food services at Penn State University
David W. McDonald
Director of Dining Services
Rice University
Houston, Texas
5,500 total students
5,200 meals served daily
W
e look at portion control from
three levels: student education,
the service line and kitchen expertise.
Student Education
The bottom line is that we teach students how to eat right and follow a philosophy of “eat what you need, not what
you want.” We use an industry standard
called the “plate method” that has been
formatted in a graphic, which is the
size of our service plate. This method
eliminates the confusion of the “food
pyramid” by graphically displaying what
food and how much to take.
Service Line
Controlling portions on the service
line takes a multi-pronged approach
since we are an “all-you-can-eat” format. Portions for main entrées are never
larger than five ounces and most often
four ounces. The remainder of the entrée
service line has serving utensils that are
either four or six ounces and on the salad
bar, two to four ounces.
22 JULY 2010
Pierre St-Germain
Associate Director for
Dining/Executive Chef
Rhode Island School of Design
Providence, R.I.
2,400 total students
2,900 meals served daily
R
hode Island School of Design
Dining is an ingredients-driven
program and on our campus we use a
variety of techniques to not only serve
the correct portion size, but also to encourage responsible eating with our
students.
The structure of our program is a hybrid of a la carte meal service and bundled meals. A significant section of the
population wants their food to be portable, and thus there is a large request for
both pre-packaged and student-created
to-go dishes. We use portioning for our
center-of-the-plate and single-serving
entrées (i.e. lasagna) through our Menu
Management System (MMS). For certain dishes there are specific size utensils, and this information is written into
the recipes in our MMS, so anyone
working would know that particular
dish’s correct service equipment.
The core of our curriculum is Art
and Design, so it is important that the
entrées visually captivate the students;
to this end we use show plates in our
Josh Berg
Retail Dining Manager
University of Wisconsin – Stevens
Point
Stevens Point, Wisc.
9,264 total students
6,500 meals served daily
A
s a student-centered organization, the University Dining Services team supports the University of
Wisconsin - Stevens Point (UWSP) by
creating quality dining experiences,
cultivating community and enhancing
the educational experience on campus.
Ninety percent of the employees for
University Dining Services (UDS) are
comprised of UWSP students. Therefore, training and tools for monitoring
portion control are vital.
Evening Production Crew
I have a crew of students who work
each evening to assist in production for
the next day. These students prepare
items for the next day’s cycle menu
based on the specifications of our menu
management system (from CBORD).
Also, they produce all of the grab ’n
go items for the satellite operations according to proper weight and measure
specified on the recipes in our menu
management system. Training of these
individuals is critical.
ON-CAMPUS HOSPITALITY
—McDonald
—St-Germain
—Berg
Since we are a trayless dining operation, the plate size is of importance.
Here is what we discovered: Before going trayless, we used a 9 1/2-inch plate,
but since becoming trayless, we found
that students could easily carry two
plates. We changed to a 10 1/2-inch plate
whereby the students now only carry one
plate (less food on a larger plate compared with two smaller plates).
main dining facilities. Show plates
serve a dual purpose, not only by enticing the students to have the dish shown,
but also to inform the employee how
the dish should look and the exact portion size.
We have reduced the size of our
plates so that for all-access buffets or
bars, it encourages people to take a
more reasonable serving and thus contributes to less waste, but is an acceptable size for traditional entrées.
In our to-go program we make sure
that items that may have variance in
size and shape are weighed to ensure a
proper portion and pricing. For students
making their own plates to go, we have
chosen a compostable to-go container
that allows for both hot and possibly
liquidy foods to be carried, while maintaining a size that encourages reasonable portions.
We use the standard industry portion-control mechanisms in UDS at
UWSP. We have a scale at our homemade pizza operation to measure the
toppings that are placed on each pizza
and at our grill area to portion those delicious Wisconsin cheese curds. Sizedout scoops and spoodles are a common
sight at my retail outlets. These are used
for portioning everything from the meat
and rice for your stir-fry to the salsa that
is placed on your taco salad.
All in all, portion control is a critical area for campus foodservice operations. The smallest of changes can make
the biggest financial impact. Moreover,
portions have to be consistent to provide the most accurate nutritional information for our students.
Kitchen Expertise
Kitchen expertise is really the heart of
portion control and where all things begin.
We now have 10 certified American Culinary Federation chefs and 85 culinary employees dispersed amongst six locations
cooking 90 percent from scratch. Controlling the ingredients and cutting consistent
portions is key on several levels. Inconsistent and too-large portion sizes will inevitably drive food cost higher or on the
other end, limit customer satisfaction by
displaying too small a portion.
ON-CAMPUS HOSPITALITY
—OCH
JULY 2010 23