Team Introduction and Project Background

With the creation of several groups of students in Dr. Allen Wysocki's class, Team Albertson's came to rise.  Team Albertson's was comprised of Jose Miguel Garcia, Bennett Curry, and Matthew Potochnik.  Jose is in his fourth year at the University of Florida as Food and Resource Economics Major with a background in Business.  Bennett Curry is a Gainesville resident and also a fourth year Food and Resource Economics Major.  Matthew plans on graduating with his Food and Resource Economics degree in fall of 2006.  Team Albertson’s was put together to conduct a survey for Gator Dining Services. 

This survey’s goal was first and foremost to gather-information, information, and more information.  The goal of gathering as much information as possible from students at the University of Florida was to gather their ideas and feelings to their dining, eating, and service experience here on campus.  The students were surveyed to learn what they like and dislike, because all information would be necessary for Gator Dining Services to improve itself and offer better services to the students.

Gator Dining Services

Many things have changed since Aramark became the foodservice provider for Gator Dining Services at the University of Florida in May 1995.  At the beginning the University had no residential dining facilities, there were less than 12 retail locations throughout the school property, and very few national brands were on campus.  At the time the contract was signed, annual Gator Dining Service sales were $8 million.  The annual sales number is expected to be $22 million for the 2006 and 2007 school year.    

Today the University has more than 30 retail locations including the Hub, Little Hall Express, the Reitz Union, the Racquet Club, and many more.  At these 30 locations a student could find 11 nationally branded restaurants including  Burger King, Taco Bell, Chik-Fil-A, Wendy’s, Subway, Einstein Bagels, Freshen’s Fruit Company, Starbucks, Quiznos, KFC, and Boars Head Sandwiches.  Pricing at most of the nationally branded restaurants are slightly higher than normal but that is because of the convenience that these locations offer students.  Also two all-you-care-to-eat locations are found on campus.  The first is called Gator Corner and is found on North/South Dr. and Stadium Road.  The second is called The Fresh Food Company and is located at the Broward Residential Hall.  At these two facilities, choices range from food off the grill, and bistro.  Plates can be made from Hispanic and Asian recipes along with famous Italian dishes.  Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are served at both these locations which are open all 7 days in the week.  Pricing for these two locations increases from breakfast to lunch to dinner.  Gator Dining offers a meal plan that can save the student up to 58% off the retail cash price.  Two meal memberships exist.  The first is the All Campus Meal Membership.  Here there are options that range from unlimited meals in the two all-you-care-to-eat dining halls for $1,647.06 a semester.  Another option in this membership is the 10 meals a week at the dining halls and $200 flex bucks to be spent at any restaurant on campus for $1,315.63.  The second meal membership is the Regular Declining Balance Account.  This account is for students who do not wish to open an All Campus Meal Membership and just deposit money into there Gator1 id account that could be spent at all retail locations including the two dining halls.  Between the dining halls and the retail locations, over 130,000 customers are served each week. 

Gator Dining Services has a foodservice contract with Aramark that runs through 2009.  Along with the provisions in the contract, and the exclusive rights as the foodservice provider to the University, Aramark pays the University a commission on everything sold on campus.  Currently this percentage is 10.4%.  Aramark is also in charge of upgrading the facilities and joins in the continuation of meeting the University of Florida’s mission.  One constraint to the retail locations is the acceptance of credit cards and debit cards. 

Today’s current marketing efforts put forth by Gator Dining Services include many ideas ranging from new buildings on campus providing food service as well as the addition of national brands.  With the amount of students in the Carlton Hall and Little Hall area, Gator Dining thought it a good idea to put a food service station there.  What an idea it has been. The idea came into reality in 2005 when the new Little Hall Express opened its doors.  Currently serving KFC and Boar’s Head Sandwiches along with numerous snacks and drinks, Little Hall Express is constantly full.  Along with new buildings comes the addition of desired nationally branded restaurants like Chik-Fil-A in 2003, and Quizno’s and KFC in 2006.  The goal is to offer more variety to students by adding restaurants that have had success and will have success on campus.  The newest addition has been the highly student demanded Starbuck’s located at Library West.  At one point an ongoing debate raged as to whether there should be a Starbuck’s in the library but since its opening, lines have formed out the doors.

With the efforts made by Gator Dining Services, it is obvious students are receiving a better service.  Ratings are high because student demands and wants are being met.  Not only are buildings opening up close to class where students need not walk far for food, they are eating their favorite foods because of the new chain restaurants being added.  Perhaps the next idea that is possible and being discussed is the addition of a fast-casual restaurant on campus. In a recent survey conducted fast casual restaurants where not only the most frequently visited restaurants by students but also the favorite restaurants of the majority of students.  With this knowledge Gator Dining is in the process of adding a pita restaurant and a burrito restaurant that would satisfy the students likes.

Team Albertson’s Role in the Project

Team meetings where easy to organize and communication was just as easy since the team was able to meet every Tuesday and Thursday after our AEB 4309 class.  For this reason our team was always in contact and knew what each member was accomplishing. 

The first thing we as a group had to figure out was how to distribute the work.  This was done fairly simple by just assigning each member a minimum of 17 surveys.  This was done so that everyone had equal work.  The next step was to analyze the students.  By this we meant when and where.  The first part of this equation was easy as Gator Dining selected The Hub and Little Hall Express as our locations to target.  So we decided the appropriate times.  The first time block was set from 8:20 a.m. to 9:40 a.m.  This was intended to study the students who eat breakfast.  The two locations gave us feedback primarily on Einstein Bagels in the Hub and the snack and drinks at the convenience store located in Little Hall Express.  The second time block was set up for lunch time when the most traffic is seen at these two locations.  The time block set was from noon to 1:30 p.m.  This time block was important because it gave us answers from students who are at these locations frequently at the most important time of the day for these two spots.  Here analysis was done on Quizno’s and Chik-fil-A at the Hub and KFC and Boar’s Head Deli in Little Hall Express.  The last time block was from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.  This time was agreed upon to gather information from students who visit these two locations for early dinners, late lunches or just a midday snack.  Our last step after organizing our procedure was to go out and conduct the survey.

Several challenges were immediately evident once the surveying was underway.  The first problem was the ability to approach people.  We learned that it is tough to be confident and walk up to a stranger especially with the purpose of asking them to fill out a survey for you.  The second problem was upon walking up to a student you had to see the look on their face.  This was a problem because most of the time the look either said “Oh no please don’t talk to me because I do not want to be bothered so leave me alone,” or “I can’t believe I have to do this for this person, it’s a waste of my time but I’d feel bad saying no to his face.”  Another problem that was noted several times by students was the length of the survey.  With 43 questions sometimes students began running late to class as they answered questions.  A fourth problem our team encountered was the lack of PDA’s.  With three members and only one PDA, we had to share and do our work when an individual had the PDA so that the next team member could use it.  And last but not least was the student’s lack of understanding of some of the questions.  There were surveys that had students eating lunch up to 30 times a week.  Some students didn’t know the difference in many of the ranking questions.

Copy of the Gator Dining Services Survey

Analysis and Finding

            For the gathering of data for this project our team used the survey provided by Gator Dining Services.  This was a 43 question survey that was used to obtain background information on the respondents in areas such as gender, campus status, living arrangements, number of days on campus, and average lunch expenditures.  In addition the survey was used to gather information on respondents’ perceptions of Gator Dining Services and any recommendations they had to improve the dining experience on campus.  The answers to the survey’s questions were gathered using a hand-held PDA device that our team used at the two predetermined locations on campus.

During the course of this project we found that dividing the day and the data gathered up into time blocks made this process very easy.  Having the organized time blocks ensured us that students who used the two food service locations would always be present.  These of course are the students we were aiming at, those who use Gator Dining services frequently.  The time blocks also made it seem like a meeting or a class which you could not be late to.  This didn’t allow anyone of the group members to get lazy with there surveys because we all knew who had to be where and at what time.  The PDAs also proved to be very useful in gathering information from respondents.  They were very user friendly.  An additional benefit we found was passing out the complimentary soda cards.

After surveying students on campus at the University of Florida, our team’s next challenge was analyzing the data.  Our group’s data was combined with the data gathered by several other groups participating in the survey project.  In total, we analyzed the responses from 365 surveys.  This data was compiled and analyzed to discover students’ perceptions of Gator Dining Services on campus and to make any recommendations to Gator Dining on what might be done differently to better meet their customers’ needs.  The following is an analysis of the data we gathered and our proposed recommendations.

            Of the 365 responses to the Gator Dining survey, 211 or 58.1% were male and 149 or 40.8% were female.  Four respondents chose not to list their gender.  When asked about whether or not they lived on or off campus, an overwhelming 79.5% lived off campus leaving the remaining 20.5% as those that lived in on campus housing.  One of the focuses of the survey was the lunch experience while dining on campus.  Of particular importance was the fact that 65.4% or the respondents spend between $4.00 and $7.00 for an average lunch meal.  This is very useful for Gator Dining as they need to understand their consumers’ spending preferences.  Also, the majority of those surveyed spend between four and seven days on campus per week.

            One of the most important questions in this survey asked what location on campus was most frequented.  Of the 18 locations listed in the survey the two most chosen locations were the Reitz Union and The Hub with 135, or 37%, choosing the Reitz Union and 119, or 32.6% choosing The Hub.  Our analysis will focus on these two locations as we feel that there was only enough data for these locations to draw reliable conclusion from the information we received.  After listing their most frequented on campus location those surveyed were then asked to rate that location on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 being poor and 7 being excellent, on areas such as food quality and value, pricing, atmosphere, dining staff interactions, and overall experience.  Following are tables listing the average ratings given for The Hub and the Reitz Union:

            After analyzing the average ratings for these two locations we determined the following recommendation was appropriate: The average overall experience for the two locations were slightly above average at 4.95 for the Reitz Union and 4.9 for The Hub.  To improve the dining experience at the Reitz Union, focus should be on increasing value by improving the quality of the interactions between the students and the dining staff, and looking into the availability of more healthy or vegetarian product offerings.  Our conclusions were the same for The Hub; however, more emphasis needs to be placed on the interactions with the dining staff at this location.

            We also decided that it was particularly important to note that those who frequented the Hub and the Reitz Union were also the most likely to prefer and to travel off campus for restaurants in the Casual and Fast-Casual segments when convenience was not the determining factor in their food purchases.  We felt that this was useful for making the recommendation that Gator Dining look at the possibility of the addition of one of these restaurants on campus for student convenience.

Lessons Learned/Recommendations for Gator Dining Services

Throughout this assignment we learned many things.  Perhaps the most obvious was that students dislike being approached or bothered when on campus especially for the purpose of conducting a survey.  When on campus students like minding their own business much like each of the three members in Team Albertson's.  Another thing we learned which reflects how we feel also is that students like convenience but at the same time, they prefer a casual dining experience that offers them value.  This was shown in the results where fast-casual is the student’s favorite type of establishment but also the most frequently visited type of restaurant.  The third idea that was new to us is that students like being in high traffic areas especially on campus.  This was shown to us with the popularity of the Hub and the Reitz Union.  Students here went because they knew other students would be there.  These two locations are meeting points for friends and even strangers.

            When looking in hindsight at what we as a team would do differently not many things came up.  We feel that the way we planned to survey and the way we conducted our surveys worked both efficiently and effectively.  One thing that factored into our statistics that we could have done is surveyed students at the two all-you-care-to-eat dining locations on campus.  This idea came up because we were only getting information on students from The Hub and Little Hall Express.  But these are the two places Gator Dining referred so it had to have been for a reason.  It just that part of the survey asked questions on the dining halls and many students did not know how to answer.  Also many of the students were third and fourth year students.  This may have also been because of the locations set up to conduct our surveys at.  The main thing that we would have changed was the number of questions on the survey.  Many students became jittery or irritated around question #27.  The length was a little too long as students started running late for class and some had their lunch time cut shorter than they would have liked.  In dealing with the questions many were not very specific.  This was seen primarily in the ranking type questions.  When speaking of hospitality, greeting, friendliness, and helpfulness they should all be cut down.  Many questions reiterated what a previous question was asking.

            As a result of this project Team Albertson’s came up with some very good recommendations for Gator Dining Services.  The first is to lower the prices, or improve the food quality if not both at the two dining hall locations on campus.  Many students were frustrated by having the same food everyday at these two locations and were not satisfied with the value they were receiving.  Another is to increase the availability of nutritious offerings for health conscious consumers.  Or in this case make it more public which foods are nutritious.  This may be the case because the University of Florida has just been named to the top 10 list of Best Vegetarian Friendly Colleges in the United States.  So the availability is there but perhaps the notification is not.  We feel our best recommendation for an addition is to add a fast-casual dining restaurant on-campus (and no the Orange and Brew does not count).  With fast-casual being students favorite and most visited type of restaurant, why not have one on campus?  This restaurant not only would be flooded with students at lunch time, dorm living students looking for a good place to eat will be swarming the restaurant for dinner.  Improving the quality of customer service is another much needed improvement.  Whether it be the serving staff at the Chik-Fil-A or the friendliness of the staff at Gator Corner.  The last and perhaps biggest change needed is the acceptance of credit cards and debit cards on campus.  This not only is convenient for students in terms of a new medium of exchange, but may also speed up the long wait lines at some of the retail locations.    

Team - Results - Recommendations - All You Can Eat - Vending - Powerpoint

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