Best of Show—Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech Dining
While Virginia Tech’s flex-based meal plan approach may not be completely unique, it is uniquely successful, with twice the number of meal plan holders as students living on campus, indicating widespread voluntary meal plan purchases. The dining program is also in the forefront in a number of other areas, such as sustainability and local purchasing (including having its own farm), mobile ordering, the development of in-house brands and the strategic deployment of outside ones
Best Convenience Retail Concept—Fresh For You Market, Eskenazi Health
Eskenazi Health
This hospital c-store stocks healthy, fresh items at bargain prices made possible by the institution’s volume purchasing clout and holds regular cooking sessions on how to prepare them at home.
Best Customer Service Concept—Café Agua Dulce Grill, Sweetwater Union High School District
Sweetwater Union High School District
Gas grills installed at high-traffic areas at 15 district school sites offered an alternative lunch meal in a convenient, prominent, trendy and interactive format, boosting participation.
Best Management Company Concept—True Eats, Aramark
Aramark
This flexible concept is designed to deliver fresh onsite food for small business locations of varying sizes using a combination of innovative, hoodless cooking technology and a 24/7 self-serve kiosk.
Best Menu—Not Junk Food, Restaurant Associates
Restaurant Associates
This innovative concept menus vegan versions of popular “junk foods” such as burgers, mac and cheese and tacos as a way to encourage healthier, plant-based eating without straying too far from familiar looking dishes.
Best New Facility—Hyatt Headquarters Food Hall, Hyatt Corp./Fooda
Fooda
Hyatt’s relocated corporate headquarters in Chicago includes a new $1.2 million food hall that offers a daily rotation of local restaurant pop-ups plus food made by the resident executive chef.
Best Renovation—Student Center, New England Institute of Technology (NEIT)/Connor Architecture
Connor Architecture
NEIT and Connor renovated and expanded the school’s existing student center and dining facility into a campus center that now also accommodates the new resident student population as well as serving as a community hub for both residents and commuters.
Best Special Event—Solutions 5 Conference, Microsoft/Compass Group
Microsoft
At last year’s Solutions 5 conference, a series of themed menus were served at successive meal and snack periods that illustrated various concepts being explored by the conference, such as generational variances in tastes, food/technology issues, food as medicine, food waste and the future of food.
Best Station Concept—Kreme Kreamery, FLIK Lifestyles
FLIK Lifestyles
This mobile cold steel organic ice cream concept is designed especially for senior centers where its menu of frozen delights has special appeal and can be used either as part of a regular café rotation or as a special event ice cream cart.
Best Wellness Concept—Bean Sprouts Cafe
Bean Sprouts
This station concept from vendor Bean Sprouts is designed especially for family venues such as zoos and science centers, and features healthy but kid-friendly meal selections with creative presentation.
