International students upset with university’s use of leftover dinners; Some say Carousel unfairly banked off banquet’s excess
When the International Student Council prepared a banquet Saturday for 330 people, they didn’t realize their guest list included lunch customers at Carousel Court.
The menu at the banquet included a green bean curry dish, which one of the members of the ISC discovered was being served the Monday following the banquet. Chuck Weaver, director of Dining Services, does not deny the leftover food was used. He said this sort of thing is done “all the time” by caterers, restaurants and hotels and didn’t see why it was a problem. He said when the chef plans out a week’s worth of meals, he may decide to use leftovers from a recent event.
Weaver said extra food is always made for any event on campus in case more people come than expected. In the case of the ISC banquet, the amount of extra food was unknown, but Abinash Battachan, ISC president, said 207 people attended, so at least 123 meals were left over.
“The thing that makes us angry is we paid for that,” Battachan said. In a letter printed in The Statesman Wednesday, he asked if the school wasn’t trying to make extra bucks on food that was already bought and paid for.
“It’s not ethical. They bear the prestigious logo of Utah State University,” he said. “This is low and unacceptable.”
The ISC paid a total of $2,645.12 for the event, which covered meals, servers and table decorations. Food cost $6.97 per plate and tickets were sold for $8 for students, 6$ for children and $12 for faculty, staff and the community. Battachan said the ISC never made up the cost of the banquet through ticket sales. Council members cooked the food themselves, which Weaver said lowered the cost of the event. Even though the ISC paid for the food and the event, Weaver said that doesn’t mean the food is theirs.
“That is our asset, our resource,” he said.
Jeff Woolley, catering manager at USU, also said this is a common practice in the food service business. He said he has been in the restaurant business 24 years.
“If you go to [a buffet restaurant] and pay $9 a person to get in, do they get to take a big to-go box home with them?” he said.
Battachan said the ISC was very concerned about the ethics of reselling something that was already bought and paid for. He said it wouldn’t have been such a problem if they were giving it out for free.
“If we had been told they were going to sell it, we could have talked about it then,” he said.
Battachan said they actually wanted to have caterers from Indian and Chinese restaurants take care of the food, but because USU Housing and Dining Services is an independent business not supported by the school, it would be like a restaurant allowing another restaurant to cook in its kitchen, said Malik Hamilton, acting chef de cuisine. Woolley said they have to rent the kitchen space and event rooms.
Woolley said even though the ISC members were cooking food themselves, there were four chefs supervising them. He said the council received a discount on the event because they did the cooking.
All the food that was put out on the serving line was eaten or discarded, Weaver said. Battachan said he asked for some of the food to be saved so the ISC members could eat. He said they hadn’t had a chance to eat during the banquet. Battachan said Woolley bent the rules this time and allowed them to take some of the food with them, which Woolley confirmed, but he said he never said they could take all the food.
Battachan said some members were upset that USU policy does not allow people to take leftover food off campus. Woolley said this was a liability issue. If the food is not properly taken care of and makes someone sick, the school may be liable even though the food was no longer under their control.
“We were taking a fairly big risk just allowing [the students] in the kitchen,” Woolley said.
Weaver said the school can keep food from events and serve it again, possibly several days later, because they have a license to serve food and have certified chefs who know how to care for it so it doesn’t become contaminated. Students may not know how to do this and inadvertently make people sick, he said.
Woolley said he was sure the food was OK to serve customers, but Battachan said it did not look appetizing after two nights in the refrigerator.
“If we were to do everything fresh every single day, the cost would be a lot higher,” Woolley said. “If it’s something that’s bad, I’m not going to use it.”
Battachan said the server at the Carousel told council members the food was cooked fresh Monday morning. Woolley said he didn’t know who was serving at the time, but sometimes if you get someone who was not involved in the cooking process, they may simply say something “off the cuff” in front of a customer instead of going back to the kitchen and talking to the chef.
-ella@cc.usu.edu