On-campus food prices not increasing

By Annie Vangsnes

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Students who eat at the Underground, the Market or other on-campus options, can rest easy because prices won’t be increasing this year as they have in previous years.

KU Dining Services sets prices annually for more than 20 cafés, snack bars, coffeehouses, and food courts across campus.

Alecia Stultz, assistant director of retail dining services, said KU Dining’s prices were usually set at the beginning of each fiscal year and depended on the market price of food and local business comparisons.

Stultz said last year there was a larger price increase because the cost of food and gas went up. She said that over the last two years prices increased, but not across the board.

Austin Groom, Wichita sophomore, said he ate at the Underground every day even though he thought the food was expensive. He said that he could save money if he woke up early enough to make a lunch, but that the Underground was more convenient.

James Barbee, Overland Park senior, said he ate at the Underground whenever he had class, which in the summer, was five days a week.

“I find ways to keep it reasonable,” Barbee said. “There’s a $5 maximum and I pick and choose underneath that.”

Barbee said he hadn’t noticed much of a price change in the last few years.

Stultz said there was a mathematical equation for pricing food. When she prices a hamburger, for example, she factors in packaging, the bun, the patty, possible condiments, the electricity to make it, labor costs for the employee and the percentage of profit. She said KU Dining usually made 35 to 36 percent profit on any particular item.

“We also keep in mind that the largest percentage goes toward employees and staff,” Stultz said.

That price equation is not applied to franchises such as Jump Asian Express, Chick-fil-A and Pizza Hut. Stultz said the franchises set a price range that KU Dining prices had to fall between.

Stultz said the pricing equation wasn’t usable for all items such as convenience foods, bottled beverages or premade and prepackaged snacks. Those items are already more expensive so it’s difficult to make money from those items, she said.

Stultz said that when there was a price increase, she tried to keep it to less than 5 percent and tried not to change prices after a semester had already started.

“It’s a hassle to change during the year,” Stultz said.

The only reason prices would change during the year, Stulz said, is if a franchise wanted to adjust its pricing, which happened last year with Chick-fil-A.

“Unless something drastic happens during the year, we plan on letting it ride until the first of the next fiscal year,” Stultz said.

Stultz said the price of some specialty coffee drinks KU Dining offered would go down a few cents.

— — Edited by Ross Stewart

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