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The mystery in mystery meat will soon be revealed as Dining Services launches its new menu management program, EATEC. Daniel Sturrup, director of finance for Student Auxiliary Services said the software, currently being set up, will allow Dining Services to make nutrition information more readily available to patrons over the Internet, as well as display ingredients and caution those with allergies.
“The goal is to give students information that we already have but is held in the back of the kitchen,” he said.
Dining Services’ departmental dietitian Laura Honeycutt said she has been very busy working on calculating the nutrition content for menu items served in the dining commons. She began the project three years ago, but abandoned due to time and budget constraints. In order to serve students’ needs and prepare for the new software, she resumed the process.
“It’s time consuming,” she said. “If the recipe changes, I have to be on top of that and go back and redo the whole thing.”
Currently there are over 1,800 recipes in the database, though Honeycutt is focusing on the most commonly prepared meals. About 200 items are finished, and there is a three-ring binder containing that information in each commons.
While perusing through the binder, one might notice that there are red apples next to some of the menu items. These are DineSmart choices, which are better nutritional selections. Honeycutt estimates that about 25 to 30 percent of the items in the binders are DineSmart. While these menu items have always been available, this is the first time that they have been marketed as healthier choices, she said.
The goal of the department is eventually to have this information available on Dining Services’ Web site, though Honeycutt realized quickly that the task was large.
“We just don’t have the labor,” she said. “It would take a full-time person.”
Dawn Aubrey, project manager of the strategic plan for Dining Services, said that Dining Services is looking to the new software to aid this process, as well as streamline production. She said one of purposes of the new program is to provide consistency.
“In regards to nutrition and allergies, we have to be consistent [in recipes],” Aubrey said. “Otherwise, you are going to question ‘Is this nutrition information accurate?’”
Aubrey cited a recent marketing survey that concluded that today’s students are more keen regarding their food choices.
“They are more food savvy purchasers of products and services. They also have a better knowledge of the authenticity of ethnic foods,” she said. “We will need to meet their needs.”
Dining Services expects to implement the program fully within the next 14 months, said Sturrup. The database is replacing UMaine’s old menu management software, CBoard, which was purchased in 1991, he said.
“UMaine was, at one time, one of the more advanced land grant universities [in regards to dining services],” Sturrup said.
He said that while CBoard served the university well, it outgrew the university’s needs and it became more practical to look for a new service.
“EATEC is pretty much state of the art,” he said. “It’s going to give considerably more information to students in a timely fashion.”
Other institutions that use the service include Brigham Young University, Columbia University, Applebees restaurants and Foxwoods Resort Casino. Currently, UMaine is the only institution in the state that is using the program, though if it is successful the entire University of Maine System office might implement it as well.
Bangor Daily News