Last school year, Georgia Tech made a drastic change to on-campus dining services that surprised most of its students.
In January of last year, the Georgia Tech community was shocked to learn that Georgia Tech would not be renewing their contract with Sodexo as a provider of campus dining services. Sodexo, a company that Tech had worked with for over twenty years, consequently sued the Board of Regents and former President Bud Peterson shortly after the Institute decided upon Aramark, a competing company, to take up the dining services on campus.
After a relatively short legal battle, the case was officially closed at the end of the 2019 Spring semester as dismissed without prejudice.
As a Fall 2019 transfer student, my dining experience my first semester at Tech was only with Aramark’s services. Though I have no comparison to make, I found the dishes to be very well made with a good variety of fruits and vegetables that made for satisfying meals.
My opinion on the quality of Aramark’s services doesn’t seem to be a unique one, as many students have praised the change in dining service providers.
Samah, a second-year student, recalls her experiences with Sodexo’s services from her Freshman year at Tech . “It wasn’t amazing or anything,” she said, “West [Village] was like you either got a salad or some dry noodles with chicken.” Though Samah no longer eats at the dining halls on campus, she also noted that the cafeterias have a greater variety of food than before and their facilities appear to be cleaner.
First-year students, who are required to have meal swipes as part of their meal plan, are some of the most frequent visitors to Tech’s dining halls. The experience of these dining services is not only important to the well-being of students, but it also reflects the integrity of the campus. Beginning and ending the day with a nutritious, healthy and filling meal in a clean environment can make huge difference in the attitudes and performance of the student body.
As it seems, in the year since Georgia Tech brought in Aramark to take over dining services, the change in dining services and student experience has been overall improvement to the campus.