College Cafeteria “Confidential” - Rob Morasco, Senior Director of Offer Development, Sodexo USA, from the Animal Agriculture Alliance Stakeholder Summit Titled Cracking the Millennial Code Stakeholder Summit, May 8 - 9, 2014, Crystal City, VA, USA.
More presentations at http://www.trufflemedia.com/agmedia/conference/2014-cracking-the-millennial-code
1. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 916-B Arlington, VA 22201 (703)562-5160 animalagalliance.org
College Cafeteria “Confidential”
Rob Morasco CEC
Senior Director Offer Development
Sodexo Campus Services USA
2. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 916-B Arlington, VA 22201 (703)562-5160 animalagalliance.org
Purchasing Drivers
Client Needs
Student Needs/Challenges
What are We Doing?
Business Case
3. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 916-B Arlington, VA 22201 (703)562-5160 animalagalliance.org
Purchasing Drivers
Value
Distribution
Right Product for
Application
Sustainably Sourced
4. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 916-B Arlington, VA 22201 (703)562-5160 animalagalliance.org
5. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 916-B Arlington, VA 22201 (703)562-5160 animalagalliance.org
6. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 916-B Arlington, VA 22201 (703)562-5160 animalagalliance.org
Client Needs
Innovation
Differentiation
Sustainability
Leverage Technology
FINANCES - #1
“Financial health will continue to
be one of the top issues that
higher education faces, and
one that impacts enrollment,
facilities upkeep, and potentially,
student programs.”
7. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 916-B Arlington, VA 22201 (703)562-5160 animalagalliance.org
Student Needs/Trends
Value Hunting
Glocal WorldSearch for Authenticity
“Me First”
8. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 916-B Arlington, VA 22201 (703)562-5160 animalagalliance.org
Student Hot Buttons
Local, Local, Local!!
Naturally Raised/Sourced
Wellness – Sodium…
REAL FOOD
9. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 916-B Arlington, VA 22201 (703)562-5160 animalagalliance.org
Challenges
Cost
Volume/Capacity
Campus Goals
Logistics/Safety
10. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 916-B Arlington, VA 22201 (703)562-5160 animalagalliance.org
What Are We Doing?
11. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 916-B Arlington, VA 22201 (703)562-5160 animalagalliance.org
What Else Are We Doing?
Focus on Wellness
Local
Seafood
Having “Real” Discussions
12. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 916-B Arlington, VA 22201 (703)562-5160 animalagalliance.org
The Business Case for Not Having
our “Head in the Sand”
A Seat at the Table
Market Competitiveness
Truth in Advertising
True Partners
13. 2101 Wilson Blvd, Suite 916-B Arlington, VA 22201 (703)562-5160 animalagalliance.org
Now lets get on to the good stuff…
Hinweis der Redaktion
Cost is critical, but we prefer the word “value” – sometimes the cheapest item is not the best way to go, sometimes it is
We use over 70 Prime or Broadline distributors – for effective activation of a specification we need broad distribution
Our operators say we just pick the cheapest thing – our leadership says oh a bunch of chefs, they just pick the most expensive thing because they think it is the best…neither are true – when we select a product we really dive into what the intended application is for that product – our K12 market for example, has to use pre-cooked burgers in their environment and they have to meet nutritional and cost criteria
All encompassing – from factory/production sustainability gains (which are not very sexy to our clients or customers btw) to the real issue of “where does my food come from and how is it raised or grown?”
Sustainability at Sodexo – the better tomorrow plan – 4 pillars of consumer facing initiatives with 18 measurable activities behind them.
Environmental
Wellness
Local
Diversity and inclusion
For us – its all about measureable goals
Communication is key for all – how we market what we are doing to our clients and consumers
Discuss communication challenges
Met with many clients – we survey them, we ask them in “post-mortems” – what are their biggest issues? What do they need help with? What haven’t we done a good enough job of doing?
Innovation – all encompassing – they want their providers to bring them the latest and greatest
Differentiation – their market is SO competitive – administrators know “food” as a service consistently ranks in the top 5 reasons of “why a student and/or their parents choose a college/university”. Administrators need to compete against their peers in the space, just like we do.
Sustainability – while the knowledge base and goals vary widely from campus to campus – there is NO denying this is a hot button issue. LOCAL sourcing is by far the #1 issue for foodservice providers to deal with. Lots of pitfalls here – food safety, sustainable practices and consistency and quantity of available product are tops.
Technology – how do we connect with students who are so tech savvy? How do we help our clients drive this and keep students on campus? We already know they aren’t really interested in liking us on Facebook…so is it texting? Mobile apps? Twitter? More to come on this…
So if you ask this question of yourself or a college student – you may get some or all of these – chances are the one you won’t get is the biggest single issue – FINANCE
Every client, no matter where they are with available funds (and we have them all – from community colleges to campuses with BMW’s parked at the residence halls) want to DO MORE WITH LESS – if they could pay us less, they WOULD. If they can find someone to do the same job for less, THEY WILL.
So – college students. They know food – the variety of options on a college campus vs 20 years ago is literally night and day.
Some key long term trends Sodexo sees – these are not fads or fashions with 1-2 year life spans:
Valuehunting: Empowered consumers are increasingly shrewd and demanding in their
shopping patterns, looking for strategies to extract values out of each transaction.
GlocalWorld: Growing fusions and tensions as cultural proximity grows, beliefs and
worldviews are sometimes blending in and sometimes not.
Search for Authenticity: New desires to get back to basics and regain lost benefits of past
Times
So – the sweet spot, where this all comes together -
Me First – Culture: The rise of individualism has created a culture in which consumers are
putting themselves first.
So – what does this mean to us?:
Simply put – “ I want all of this, I want it now and I do not want to pay extra for it – in fact I want the best deal I can get”
“I want to know that the dollar I’m giving you is going to make me healthy, take care of local sourcing, animal welfare, fair trade and essentially save the planet – especially the part I live in”
Being suspicious of and distancing themselves from risky financial exposures has become a Millennial imperative.
Implication:
Appeal to their pragmatism: Use reason and incentives to earn back their trust.
Ever hear of local coffee??? It’s the new thing…We have client sites requiring 50% of food items sourced within a 50 mile radius…college administrators feel a strong need to support the local community. We consider local to be 250 miles or same state. As you can imagine, local sourcing of proteins is a scary proposition – just because an item is “local” doesn’t mean it’s sustainably or naturally raised…
Organic is not the issue on college campuses – animals that are naturally raised – antibiotic free, etc is the way we see this going.
Wellness is such a huge issue for this country – the freshman 15 is a real phenomenon – students have this food emporium where they can eat whatever they want – something they never had in their life, and never will again after graduation. So we know we can’t tell college students what to do or what to eat – but we can make the everyday choices they make better for them! Sodium is an interesting one – every single product I’ve tried I always say – oh, can we go 25% more – it tastes like tomatoes now…
REAL food – we’ll talk more about this – but essentially – where does my food come from and how is it raised/grown???
The one we don’t like to bring up and students don’t always want to hear – but a reality in the space. Today, naturally raised, organic, locally grown/raised – typically costs significantly more than the conventional counterpart. ALL of our clients, no matter where they are on the better tomorrow/Real Food journey – have this concern.
Can the local farmer get our 8 sites in this geography 200 cases of lettuce per week? Do we define local/sustainable sourcing by seeing “Farmer Joe’s” truck at the loading dock or do we define it as a percentage of our spend? What is POSSIBLE in a geography from August through May??
Organizing the distribution of goods and ensuring those products are SAFE are a huge concern and in reality, a real challenge today.
Sodexo is on the better tomorrow journey – no single partner of ours is on the same level – some are much more aggressive, some not so much. Where does the campus want to be in 5 years, 10 years???
You may have heard of this one – we signed an agreement with the RFC last year and have roughly a dozen partner sites that have either signed the commitment or are ready to.
Why?
The reality is – their goals and ours are not so different
We’re all about measuring and not making unsubstantiated claims – and a 3rd party confirmation of that makes good business sense for us, especially in the campus market.
What’s great about this is it is focused on % of spend – creating real goals and measuring against them.
Gets SDX, our clients and our customers all on the same page
Items that are lower in sodium, fat, calories – this is the direction we are heading.
Local is big – our campus partners want to support the community they live in – and we are working on a local “calculator” to quickly get our partners their local purchasing “%” to help them get a baseline to achieve their goals
We are currently at 60% of our seafood spend being either MSC certified or Aquaculture Alliance certified. 100% by 2016.
With our client partners. With our manufacturing and distribution partners. Letting all know what our goals are so we can create both short and long term plans to get where we need to be.
No “REAL” Food plan or strategy – we will be left out of the conversation
Our competitors (at least one of them anyway) get a lot of press in this space – we want to own the space. How do you do that? By making sound business decisions that are aligned with our clients, mfg partners and students – not by making claims.
Measure everything against the goals that we agreed upon. And then TELL pp about it!!!
We can’t dictate policy on the campuses where we operate – but we can support our customers and clients on the journey.