Many students may not be aware that this is a critical time in which the future of the University’s food service is being determined.

UNC Charlotte has once again granted a one-year contract extension to the food service provider, Sodexho (formerly Sodexho-Marriot), in order to devote extra time to decide upon a vendor to acquire a five to ten year contract with the University. This is the third time UNCC has renewed a contract with Sodexho since the long-term contract expired in 2000.

Colleges like the University of North Carolina, Western Carolina, American University, Evergreen State, SUNY Albany, Gosher College and George Mason University have terminated their accounts with Sodexho.

At many of these universities, students protested the fact that Sodexho Alliance was a major investor in the Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in the world. The protestors felt their dining dollars were funding an industry they believed to be morally wrong, since many of the inmates in such prisons lived in substandard conditions due to the profit-seeking nature of CCA. Such an industry prevents true governmental justice since its concern is for profit and not the well-being of the inmates. Inmates did not receive necessary health care, or education programs.

Colleges across the nation were in a fury. Students marched with picket signs, held sit ins and signed petitions.

Such events hardly took place here, at UNCC. We just keep renewing our contract. We are on our way to being an activist school, I tell you!

The good news is Sodexho has since severed its ties with the private prison industry; they sold all shares of stock they owned in CCA. A spokesperson for the organization said it was purchased in a blind investment.

Though Sodexho made the right decision after plenty of probing from universities across the nation, there are still many problems that I have with the organization. After some investigation, I discovered some less-than-comforting health records from Sodexho operated schools and organizations.

In February of last year, at a high school where Sodexho-Marriot was the food service provider, a cafeteria worker cut off part of her thumb while using an automatic slicer to cut vegetables for student lunches. The thumb fragment was found in a student’s turkey-and-tomato-sandwich the next day.

After an incident of this caliber, why was the machine not taken apart, the fragment removed, and the machine cleaned, heavily? Sodexho seriously goofed.

In April of 2000, at John Hopkins University, a Sodexho operated dining facility was shutdown for eighteen health violations. The list included “unsanitary areas for food preparation” and “live vermin in the kitchen area.”

And Sodexho allowed this facility to continue operating under these conditions for quite some time. Apparently they were quite aware of the rat problem, which fluctuated in certain seasons.

After investigating the records at UNCC’s own facilities, I found that we received high marks, despite the fact that we got two quality points under each inspection for “educational credit.” Yeah, that makes sense, I suppose the “educational credit” gave us a little leeway in how sanitary we can be. I can’t honestly blame Sodexho since it is the Mecklenburg County Department of Health that decides that one.

They only discovered some petty problems here at UNCC. For instance, this past Jan. 16, they discovered that the hand mixed cole slaw at the campus Chick Fil A was being kept at 53 degrees when it should have been below 45. You know, since it can spoil if it’s too high above freezing. They had the same problem last year with mayonnaise and tartar sauce in the facilities in the SAC, and with cheese tuna salad and peppercorn chicken in Mainstreet Market, as well as deli meats which should have been below 45, but were 50 and 54 degrees. Apparently they also had some trouble keeping hot foods hot. At Pizza Hut, in an inspection held this month, the pizza was 126 degrees, and 122 degrees when it should have been above or equal to 140 degrees.

Poor Sodexho is also going through several lawsuits right now regarding civil rights and racial discrimination toward employees.

Even though Sodexho has apparently been through its share of problems, can we ever hope to gain better quality through another food service provider?

The food service committee that will determine if we will renew our long-term contract with Sodexho, or switch to another vendor, will be meeting today, March 12, April 9, and April 30. At the meetings, the committee expects to listen to offers from different food service providers as well as go over information from costumer surveys.

I wonder how accurate a customer survey can be if it was taken by a little over 1,300 students in a school of 18,000. Not to mention their incentive was a free bag of stale, expired potato chips. Oops.

Sodexho is the largest institutional food service provider in North America, making $4.5 billion in annual revenue. Laura Noethiger would like to tell the public she will not make any profit off this article, since, as Viewpoint Editor, she gets paid for the section and not by the article. She would also like to add that she really needs some more writers.