COLLEGES & UNIVERSITIES
B oston University is home to over 450 student groups. With so many student organ- izations meeting on campus daily, The Boston University Dining Services team (BU Dining), which is managed by Aramark Collegiate Hos- pitality, wanted to find a way to provide them with an easy meal option so that they didn’t need to venture off campus to purchase food for their group. “We were really looking for a way to capture those orders and keep that mon- ey on campus,” says BU Dining Market- ing Director Lynn Cody. “So, we were looking to kind of strike the balance be- tween individual orders and those more kind of formal catering orders, and we wanted to do it in a way that wasn’t go- ing to be a heavy lift for the operations team and would be kind of simple for students to adopt.” The dining team’s solution was Grab and Gather, a program designed specifi - cally for larger takeout orders. Since its launch, the program has provided stu- dents with a way to order food for their smaller gathering without ever having to step foot off campus. Boston University’s Grab and Gather program gives student groups an easy dining option when meeting on campus The program provides larger takeout order to students who are meeting up with their peers on campus. BY BENITA GINGERELLA
KEEPING THINGS SIMPLE Offering a new program can be a daunting task for the dining team, so simplicity was at the forefront during the development process. For example, the team decided to run the program through Grubhub since the employees and the students were already familiar with it. “I would say about 90% to 95% of all retail orders on our campus are done through GrubHub,” says Cody. “So we wanted to stay within a platform that the students were already using.” BU’s George Sherman Student Union was selected as the program’s hub since it has the largest concentration of retail locations anywhere on campus and can provide students with a greater variety of options. Each concept in the union has its own specific Grab and Gather menu that is separate from their regular menu. When selecting what would be included in the Grab and Gather offerings, the dining team decided to only use existing menu items so dining employees wouldn’t have to learn how to prepare a whole new menu. The only difference between the dishes served through the regular menu and through Grab and Gather’s menu, is their portion size, with the Grab and Gather options having a larger portion than those served via traditional retail. “We took the items that we are already serving every day and really looked to identify which items are fan favorites, which ones have a high acceptability rate, and which ones can hold for a little bit of time,” says Cody. Students are required to place their
orders three hour ahead of time to allow employees to prepare them without disruption their daily service. EXPANDING NATIONALLY Due to the success of Grab and Gather, Aramark Collegiate Hospitality is looking at bringing the program to other campuses serves across the country. “We believe that this can be an additional service that can meet the needs of the student community on most, if not all, of our campuses,” says Michael Gilligan, senior director of brand management for Aramark Collegiate Hospitality. Over 100 campuses managed by Aramark Collegiate Hospitality also use Grubhub on campus, so they’re well positioned to implementing the program without much red tape, Gilligan adds. “Those student government groups and those fraternities and sororities, any other group of students, they can go in and order this and conveniently pick it up right then and there using an app that they’re already familiar with,” he says. Back at BU, the dining team is also looking at expanding Grab and Gather on their end. Next semester, Starbucks and Einstein’s will join the program, and further down the line, the dining team is looking at ways they could grow the program beyond the union. “It’s definitely been successful enough that we’re looking to grow it and add different things,” says Cody. “So, we’re really exploring where we can take it and what other groups on campus we can serve.”
30
QUARTERLY | Q3
PHOTO COURTESY OF BU DINING
Powered by FlippingBook