Food for thought

With continuing renovations on campus, the issue of food choice has vexed students tired of dining at the University's limited options. To combat this problem, both food trucks and Merchants-on-Points have been promoted as a way to add variety to students' palates. Currently, the Duke University Student Dining Advisory Committee is seeking another addition to the Merchants-on-Points program with Heavenly Buffaloes being the lead candidate. We applaud these measures and urge the further addition of new food options for students.

Food—though often overlooked—is paramount to a student’s quality of life on this campus. Whereas luxuries, such as a rock-climbing wall, may increase the marginal happiness of a few on campus, the quality, cost and variety of food centrally affects the Duke experience of every single student. Thus, every effort should be made to improve on this aspect of student life.

Providing students access to outside food vendors through the MOP program is a step in the right direction and should be expanded upon. New outside options offer not only increased variety, but also health-conscious and vegetarian benefits—both of which are severely lacking on campus. Current options for vegetarian and vegan students on campus are especially meager.

It would be of great benefit to students to have a merchant with fresh produce added to the MOP lineup. Allowing students—especially those on Central Campus—to more easily cook their own food would lower the cost of eating as well as improve variety.

Interestingly, increasing access to outside vendors also provides entrepreneurial opportunities to students. Radoozle—founded by seniors Samuel Waters and Spencer Dahl two years ago—is an online ordering platform that allows students to order from food vendors using food points. We encourage more cooperation between Duke Dining and student entrepreneurs to create new ways to connect students to outside food options.

Expanding the number of vendors poses potential problems for the current Duke Dining system. Off-campus dining options necessarily siphon business away from campus eateries. There is a nearly-fixed amount of revenue each semester generated from mandatory meal plans, and increasing the number of vendors would further divide the revenue. To combat this issue, Duke Dining imposes a large upfront fee and takes a cut of profits from vendors on food points, and uses these funds to subsidize money-losing on campus food providers.