Opposition to Aramark’s bid for food contract heating up
In addition to the high paid workers, one has to understand that food service in a school setting very rarely enjoys the experience of qualified chefs and cooks who have taken the time for formal training. Typically those who manage "in house" food service are generally individuals who couldn't make it within the Aramark or Chartwell's world and basically smooze boards of education by employing catch phrases that those within the contract feeders world spit out to those outside of the food service industry to make them think they know what they are talking about.
School districts and citizens need to understand that self op's will require their cities to have higher payroll expenditures, higher insurance due to workers comp and major medical, depending on the size of the school district the cost of food could be well over a half a million dollars. The school district / board will have to have a better understanding of how food service works in order to make an informed choice when they hire upper tier management, who by the way will require a fair salary similar to the highest paid teacher or principal. (70k+)
Also keep in mind that the Aramark's, Chartwells' and Sodexho's have marketing teams who merchandise and create theme dining experiences. Does the local Sally supervisor have the knowledge and background to make and create fun choices for your students ? Will the local supervisor type person know the contacts for sustainable food sources ?
Is the manager able to understand and make informed decisions regarding contract food suppliers ?
Self op is only good IF the board of education, parents, faculty and city government know how to operate a food service business. If not then let the professionals handle the job. There are 20 or more food service companies in the area, put it out to bid.
It appears it is mostly union and union workers objecting to ARAMARK more so than students and other important constituents. This is part of a well coordinated effort by the unions to attack ARAMARK ever since the company refused 100% access to all of its accounts by the unions. Oddly, the company is growing at a 10% annually because more clients are seeing the value the company brings. Unions want to protect their highly paid union members and believe they can easily do this by eliminating any outside contractor. Yale learned the processes Aramark employs and now is replicating these without paying an outside contractor. The problem with this model is that - they will not be able to innovate and make continous improvements in the long run. Unions do not bring any expertise on processes to the account - all they bring is high paid workers which they can charge high paid dues at the expense of the tax payers.