From the Desk of Shelly Duran General Manager Sodexo Education Services Missouri State University 

Greeting Blog Friends,

Where have I been? The Month of October is always crazy for us with Show Case, Family Weekend, Homecoming etc...this year was particulary interesting because we also hosted a conference for about 400 people in the midst of all that craziness...but I am back and please allow me to update you on somethings

Something very exciting is about to being for us, we are going to begin composting waste in Blair-Shannon Dining Center.  We serve around 19000 meals a week in Blair-Shannon and we are anticipating composting around 3500 lbs of waste on a weekly basis.  This waste will be turned into compost and then will be utilized by our grounds department.  If all goes well with this test site we will extend this same process to the rest of the dining centers sometime next spring. This is just another step that we are taking to really provide a more sustainable enviroment for Missouri State University.

We have also seen an usually high amount of waste in the dining centers this semester so we will begin a "Waste Awareness" campaign to try and help educate and bring awareness to our students regarding the massive volumes of food that is wasted every day in the dining center and perhaps through awareness we can pursue the possibility of reducing at least some of that waste. Be sure to look for the flyers and posters in regards to this campaign...we are going to begin offering incentives for students to help us reduce the amount of waste in the dining centers.

I will be sure to keep you up on how the entire composting project is going and what successes we are experiencing in the process.  Best of luck with mid-terms and the remainder of the semester!

From the Desk of Shelly Duran- General Manager Dining Services- Missouri State University

Well it's that time of year again...Over the past 2 weeks we have been visited by our local Health Department and I am thrilled to say that we have done a fantastic job...I have tried to figure out a way to upload copies of our reports to show them off on our dining services blog...but I haven't been able to manage that yet...we are working on it...however that being said let me give you a unit by unit report:

Kentwood Dining Center: Zero Criticals

Garst Dining Center: Zero Criticals

Grill 155 (Sunset Strips): Zero Criticals 

Blair-Shannon Dining Center: 1 Critical...The dish machine was not heating up to the appropriate temperature...it was discovered and immediatly corrected at the time of the inspection.

Greenwood Dining: Zero Criticals

Now you will see these posted in the Springfield Newsleader...but I wanted to be sure to report it here first. Please note...I am so proud of our team for the fine job that they do with food safety on our campus...but even if there had been a critical violation in each of the units that doesn't lessen how seriously we take food safety on our campus.  Each one of my managers and myself are Serve Safe Certified, this is a requirement of working for Sodexo we train all of our employees in the HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) principles and work diligently to insure that every single food item we prepare and serve is done with the absolute attention to food safety details.

Some of you may wonder what a health inspector looks for while on campus...well if I could figure out how to post the inspection I would show you...so for now let me explain: Here are the items on the inspection:

• Demonstration of Knowledge
•  Designated PIC (person in charge)
• demonstration of knowledge and PIC duties    
• Employee Health
• Management awareness, policy present, proper use of reporting restrictions and exclusion
• Good Hygienic Practices
• Eating, Tasting, drinking or tobacco use
• Discharges from eyes, nose or mouth
• Control of Hands as a Vehicle of Contamination
• Clean condition, cleaning procedure, when to wash, and where to wash
• Approved Source-Food
• Food obtained from approved source
• Receiving temperature/condition
• records: shellstock tags, parasite destruction, required HACCP plan
• Protection from Contamination
• Food segregated, separated and protected
• Food contact surfaces cleaned & sanitized; cleaning frequency
• Food display, consumer self- service returned food/re-service of food
• Preventing contamination from equipment
• Discarding/reconditioning unsafe food
• Potentially Hazardous Food Time and Temperature
• Proper cooking, time and temperature
• Reheating for hot holding
• Cooling
• Parasite destruction
• Hot Holding
• Cold Holding
• Date marking and disposition
• Time as a public health control
• Consumer Advisory
• Consumer advisory for raw or undercooked food
• Highly susceptible populations
• Pasteurized food used, prohibited foods not offered
• Chemicals
• Toxic substances properly identified, stored and used
• Additives/approved, unapproved
• Conformance with approved procedures
• Compliance with HACCP plan, variance/specialized process

But the most important thing to note is this...even if we didn't get inspected by the Health Department we self inspect every single day.  Sodexo requires that we keep excellent record keeping to insure that our HACCP plan is maintained at an excellent level.  In addition to the inspections from the Health Department we recieve an unannounced audit annually from the National Safety Federation (NSF) Sodexo contracts with NSF to insure that each of our units are holding true to the HACCP program and maintaining the integrity of Sodexo's food program...At this unit we can boast several years of Gold 100's with these audits.

If you are ever interested in seeing a Health Inspection or a copy of the NSF audit, please do not hesitate to contact my office and I will be happy to share that information with you.

From the desk of Shelly Duran-General Manager Missouri State University Dining Services

I love gadgets...my Blackberry...My IPod...my Laptop computer...I even love kitchen gadgets...This summer, Operations Director Tony Hein and Marketing Director Vlada Andreyeva came to me and asked for the funds to purchase a gaget that evaluates the nutritional value of food items.

Introducing the Nurti-Weigh.  This gadget Calculates calories, protein, carbohydrates, sugars, fat, fiber, sodium and cholesterol of the item that is placed  on it.  It calculates these things by the portion size that you have on your plate. The Nutri-Weigh can currently be found in Blair-Shannon dining center and here is how it work:

Check it out...it's a pretty neat gadget!

From the Desk of Shelly Duran-General Manager Dining Services Missouri State University

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you are the center of a controversy and have no idea how you got there? As the general manager of dining services I find myself there often so before we get too far into the semester I am going to try and dispel some of the controversy before it begins:

Question: I am missing lunch and dinner because of a class, organization or work conflict what can I do to still be able to eat?

Answer:  We have a sack lunch program that we provide to all students on a meal plan, here is what you do. The cashiers in any of the dining centers can sign you up for a sack lunch, we ask that you sign up at least 24 hours in advance.  You can choose the items that you would like in your lunch and you set the time for pick-up.  If you know that you have multiple day conflicts sign up for a lunch for all of those days.  Please note if you fail to pick-up the lunch more than 2 times we will stop preparing them and you will need to re-sign up for this program.

Question: My roommate was sick over the weekend and we didn't want her to go into the dining room, but she needs some food. How can we get food for someone who is ill and doesn't want to come to the dining room?

Answer: As you all know we don't allow you to share your Zip card with friends, this is the one excpetion to that rule.  If you are ill and don't feel up to coming to the dining room, please provide your roomate, RA or friend with your Zip card, they can bring it to the dining room and let the cashier know they are there to pick up a sick tray.  We will swipe the card and give the person a "To-Go" tray so that person can get some food and take it back to the room.

Question: What food items can I take out of the dining room with me?

Answer: We allow any student to take out a single piece of fruit, a couple of cookies or an ice cream cone.  The only other items that can be taken out of the diing room is a sack lunck or a  sick tray.

Question: Am I required to eat in the dining center that is closest to my residence hall?

Answer: No every meal plan holder is more than welcome to eat at any of the 3 dining centers on campus. 

Question: What do I do if I can't find something in the dining room that should be there?

Answer:  Please, Please, Please ask...if you are looking for something or if one of the food items have run out or you simply cannot find it, please find an employee and ask for it.  Everyone at Sodexo feels very strongly that this is your dining room and while we will do everything in our power to make sure that we keep up with food items and properly maintain the dining room, please do not hesitate to ask if there is something that you would like and don't see it out.

Thank you for giving me this oppotunity to dispell some common rumors about dining services.  I am quite certain that there are many more out there...please do not hesitate to bounce back and let me know what those might be and I will do my best to clarify those also.

Have a terrific day !

From the Desk of Shelly Duran, General Manager, Sodexo Education Services

Dear Missouri State Students,

Welcome to the Sodexo Dining Services Blog, what I hope to accomplish with this Blog is to create a direct communication link between the Resident Dining Students and Sodexo.  It is my hope that as you read what is going on in Dining Services you will offer feedback and suggestions.  In additions to the feedback if you have questions or comments about anything dealing with dining services please feel free to post a question here.  Please note this is a open forum Blog I don't mind people getting creative, but please not profanity. Let's have some fun with this Blog.  As I tell each of you Freshmen when we visit with you at SOAR this is YOUR dining center program and you do have a VOICE with Sodexo.  On that note let's get started.

What's New this semester???

First of all each of you should have recieved a recycle mug in your room when you checked in, many of you may be wondering why...let me explain...as each of you know our theme on campus this year is "Sustainabiliy", we feel very passionate about this concept so we wanted to all that we could to help support this idea.  We use a lot of paper in the dining centers for various reasons, we have made the decison to be as paper free as possible...so in lieu of paper hot cups for coffee and hot chocolate we are giving each of you a hot/cold recycle mug to use instead.  Please note this is the ONLY recycle mug that will be allowed in the dining center. 

Many of you have heard about going "Tray-less" in the dining centers, well let me give you the real scoop...this is something that we would like to do and quite honestly someday it will be a common place practice...however many of the Missouri State students were very uncomfortable with the concept so what we have decided to do is to start slow and let everyone get use to the idea.  Once the semester gets underway and we get all of our staff in place and trained we are going to try this first of all at After Hours Dining...just one night a week to start and eventually we will expand to more nights.  Please understand this practice is not about restricting your food intake...it is about eliminating waste and conserving water by not having to wash as many trays and not introducing as many chemicals into the system by having less items to wash!

Well friends that is enough for now....share your thoughts with me, as new things come up in dining services I will keep you up to date and informed.  Please know that we appreciate each and every one of you and we do recognize the fact that without you we would not be here.

 Best of luck with your classes this semester and let's make it a great one!

Shelly Duran