The meal plan provider for UAF will be vying for a contract renewal this spring against two competitors.
The companies fighting for the contract will most likely be Aramark and Chartwells, two companies who have applied for the contract before, said UAF Dining Services. Statewide officials hope to bring all UA campuses under a single food provider.
"There will be one contractor for all three universities in Alaska," said Jeremiah Stancampiano, the assistant director for auxiliary and business operations in the dining services department.
Stancampiano, who is sure that all three of the companies will apply for the contract, said, "It's going to be really interesting with all three campuses involved with the same contractor."
UAF's current contractor is Sodexho Marriott/NANA, which nabbed the $30 million contract in 2000. University of Alaska Anchorage gets food through Aramark. University of Alaska Southeast currently has self-operated dining services.
Stancampiano said he hopes the new contract will be better and more efficient for students without the prices going up.
"My boss Robert Holden and I came in after the contract had already been finalized and found a lot of problems in the contract," Stancampiano said about the current agreement.
The new contract is going to be finalized by March 31, according to Stancampiano, in order to give the company time to be ready by the new fiscal year, which begins July 1.
The winning company will also serve meals for conference groups during the summer. According to the assistant director, these groups can be sizable and whichever company is going to take over needs time to prepare.
Aramark is UAF's former meal-plan provider, and is currently running dining services at UAA.
Stephen Wadsworth, the director of Seawolf Dining Services, confirmed that Aramark will be competing for the contract this spring.
"UA statewide would like to get the best price possible, and their view is that if one company operates all three campuses, there will be savings for all three," he said. "There will definitely be savings that will be passed along to residential students."
But Wadsworth said that there is still a good chance that different companies will be running at each campus.
According to Aramark's Web site, Aramark serves over 200 million meals annually to students, faculty and visitors at over 400 institutions, including New York University and Florida State University.
The third company, Chartwells, is a national dining service company that is currently running at 900 school districts, colleges, and independent schools, according to its Web site. It's the world's largest provider of managed dining services.
Sodhexo, UAF's current contractor in dining services, is the leading food and facilities management services company in North America, according to its Web site.
Mark Pavitt, 20, a transfer student from UAF to UAA, said the food at the Anchorage campus "is three times better" than in Fairbanks.
"The food up here is based on a whole different economic set-up," Pavitt said about the meal plan at UAA. "Instead of having all you can eat meals, they have an all you can eat meal once a day. The rest of the time you spend dining dollars, which you get a lot more of. This saves tons of cash because there isn't nearly the waste that there is with an all you can eat system."
And according to some UAF students, a change of companies would be welcome.
"I'd like to see another company to come in. I'm not happy with UAF's company as far as management, quality and preparation of food is concerned," said Blaine DeWalt, 22, a Bartlett Hall resident. "The way in which they present healthy and different options is very poor with little consideration to health."
