A year into Aramark’s return to campus, dining initiatives have been focused on providing local and sustainable food to the College of William and Mary community, increasing direct lines of student feedback and looking ahead to the opening of the new West Woods Commons dining hall in fall 2025.
Aramark was brought in by Auxiliary Services and the Request for Proposals Committee in 2023 after Sodexo’s contract expired. Aramark has expressed goals of increasing options for students with dietary restrictions, diversifying the types and flavors of food offered, as well as partnering with local businesses to obtain high quality produce and place student satisfaction at the forefront of their services.
Employees wearing golden aprons are always available in dining facilities to answer any in-person student requests.
Aramark’s new Text Concierge and Golden Apron programs allow feedback to be received directly from students, enabling swift changes to be made to the menu and new food station concepts to be designed based on real-time input from the community.
“Auxiliary Services is committed to fostering an environment that promotes the diversity of creativity, excellence, thought, culture and educational opportunities throughout the auxiliary enterprise at William & Mary,” Auxiliary Services’ website reads. “Student and community feedback is invaluable to the operations of our departments’ initiatives on campus.”
Aside from being able to communicate with dining services through the official email and social media channels, Aramark started a text concierge program where students can send a message to a number monitored by 14 dining leaders across campus.
This semester, their response time has averaged at less than three minutes, providing students with access to the dietician, executive chef and dining manager in real time for any questions.
This program also offers students with dietary restrictions the opportunity to text the head chef asking for a special meal to be prepared for them in advance that they can pick up directly.
“The biggest impact that we’ve seen and heard from students is that it’s not about waiting, it’s about I can get my food when I get there and then I can eat with my friends,” Aramark Resident District Manager Adam Poling said. “It’s the social aspect of it, because then you are not waiting for your food and by the time you get it, your friends are done and I’m eating by myself. Now I get my food with everyone else and I can be with my friends.”
Sustainability and supporting local businesses, areas of importance to many students on campus, have also been two of Aramark’s main priorities. Aramark exceeded their target of $3 million spent in partnerships with local small, women- and minority-owned — or SWAM — companies by $400,000 in their first year.
The student sustainability interns and the Office of Sustainability have worked with Aramark to implement a hydroponics wall in the Commons Dining Hall, new compost bins throughout campus, exchange express dollars for farmers’ market tokens and organize events to raise awareness about food waste and green dining practices on campus. Aramark monitors their food waste by collecting it and weighing it to ensure their food production process is efficient and aligned with the data collected.
The College’s primary dining partner relating to sustainable and local produce is 4P foods, which is based in Virginia.
“We’ve been able to work with a couple of farms and say, here’s our volume. If you can’t meet it this year, we’ll make a commitment next year to you and then that way, they’ve got a guarantee,” Poling added. “So when they go to the bank and ask for some operating capital or a line of credit, they can say I’ve got a contract with 4P foods or William and Mary Dining, so that they can make that happen.”
As part of Aramark’s commitment to supporting the local community and being more involved on the ground, they have also been prioritizing employee well-being. Students at the College have been very vocal about dining workers’ rights in the past and Aramark retained all 224 employees from the previous dining contract, without requiring them to go through further selection processes.
Lenorah Adams, an employee at Chick-fil-A, commented on the positive shift in her work environment with the return of Aramark, emphasizing the opportunities she was given to learn and grow.
“Through working with the team, I was able to apply for a promotion into the accounting office,” Aramark Financial Analyst Akhil Ravva MBA ’25 said. “The team is very helpful and inspiring in their support. I like the culture very much.”
Adams and Ravva were both promoted as part of the transition, and also noted that they heard favorable feedback from students regarding the opening hours, cleanliness and quality of the new dining program.
To increase access to food for students and counter food insecurity, Aramark extended dining hall hours significantly, keeping both the Commons and Sadler dining halls open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to midnight.
They have also planned for Bento Sushi to move to the Student Exchange, which is open until 8 p.m., after students expressed interest in more late dining options.
Fran’s Kosher Deli will also be relocating to Marketplace to expand their menu and grab-and-go options.
Finally, an Exhibition Kitchen is being introduced in the Boehly Cafe that will offer student cooking classes and interactive chef pop-ups and demos.
Moreover, Aramark consults the heat maps that track dining transactions at various times and locations across campus to observe student movement patterns, which helps guide decisions on where to place dining options to best suit students’ needs.
Grace Carryer ’27 has only eaten Aramark’s food as a student at the College. She shared that the quality and variety of food has not been outstanding, especially in the morning.
“Honestly, I really don’t love it,” Carryer said. “Especially for breakfast, they have the same things all the time and it’s never been good, like I can’t eat the eggs here and a lot of the stuff. I don’t have any dietary restrictions, but I definitely don’t feel like there’s enough choices, especially between meals.”
William Rice ’26 has experienced both Sodexo and Aramark’s food services in his time at the College. He shared with the Flat Hat that the quality of food over the past two years has been markedly better compared to his freshman year with Sodexo.
“The quality of the food this year and last year was definitely way better than my freshman year,” Rice said. It does feel like there’s a bit more variety in the newer service.”