The 58,230-sq.ft. Morrison Dining food hall style complex not only has 11 micro restaurant concepts but, sitting in the middle of it is a 2,400-sq.ft. food lab that melds the school’s dining service and academic missions through a collaboration between Cornell Dining and the Division of Nutritional Science. The complex encompasses not only an extensive front-of-the-house residential dining operation but back-of-the-house production kitchens—including commissary operations—and a catering operation, the integration of which in one facility gives Cornell Dining the ability to enhance collaboration and efficiency among them.

Suya chicken, chana masala and pollo guisado aren't dishes that typically come to mind when one thinks of school lunches, but they are among the wholesome, scratch-made, culturally relevant and NSLP-compliant dishes created by Red Rabbit for more than 200 school clients, many with a majority of students of color with diverse backgrounds. The company develops menus that are tailored to the populations of an individual district or school on a weekly basis.

The Game is a standard kind of dining venue—a sports grill—but in a unique location: inside a residential dining hall. The Utah branded concept located in the University of Utah’s new Urban Bytes dining center features six television screens, QR code ordering and a fully customizable menu that accommodates any dietary preferences and includes menu items that traditionally could not be featured in an all-you-care-to-eat dining hall setting.

Working with area farmers and vendors, the meal program at University of California Davis Health achieves both more reliable procurement and higher quality ingredients. It gets up to 80% of its produce needs from local sources, contingent on seasonal menu adjustments that take advantage of what is fresh at different times of the year, while the beef it serves is 100% organic and grass-fed, bought from local suppliers that source from several dozen California ranchers, and chicken and lamb are from producers only a few miles away.

With nine micro-restaurant concepts and seating for 1,385, Illinois Street is now one of the largest non-military dining halls in the country following an 18-month shutdown for renovation and expansion that completely overhauled a facility originally built in the 1960s and not significantly updated since then. Now, students can choose from among regional favorites from nearby Chicago, or they can range to cuisine choices from exotic locales like Pakistan, Japan or China, or they can eat safely from the Inclusive Solutions station, which features dishes free of the top nine food allergens.

These quick, convenient service set-ups feature fun student favorites that aren’t available every day, and the excitement over them has proven to significantly increase meal participation, even throughout the COVID pandemic. Currently, five unique Pop-Up Shop concepts, with additional ones in development, accommodate altered service models and expand points of service, generating considerable buzz in a short period of time while keeping menu offerings fresh and enticing.

In partnership with Arizona State, Aramark created the P.O.D. Warehouse near the Vista Del Sol apartment complex and residential halls, providing convenient access to fresh groceries, on-the-go-meal solutions and everyday essentials to students who can utilize meal exchange options and dining dollars to make purchases while also being accessible to the public. Self-checkout registers and pick-up lockers allow students to quickly secure pre-placed orders, while partnering with a grocery supplier instead of traditional c- store distributors lets Aramark source grocery products like fresh package proteins, pre-packaged salad kits, fresh produce and family size frozen entrees.

The new online ordering application at Westminster Woods at Huntingdon was created by Cura Hospitality ‘s onsite dining team to make it easy for residents and staff to order food, view menus, make reservations among other applications while the technology streamlined labor and staff efficiencies for Cura. Residents can select from dine in, pick up or curbside, as well as choose the exact day and time to receive the freshly prepared meals, while their friends and families can also log on remotely to ensure the resident is getting regular meals.

Joy•Ful was developed by Chartwells Higher Ed as a year-long, national campaign aimed at welcoming students back to campus for the 2021-22 academic year and rekindling a sense of community with a series of events helping new and returning students connect and celebrate campus life with engaging and uplifting moments of joy centered around food. Four signature Joy•Ful events took place in unison across school campuses nationwide on four dates during the school year, ranging from the Festiful return to campus street food festival in September and Thanksgiving themed Thankful in November to Delightful in February with its goal of generating 500,000 acts of kindness nationwide, and Grateful in April, designed to show gratitude for the planet, fight food waste and advance sustainability on college campuses.