Going trayless: It’s a new college trend

A flyer next to Randolph College’s cafeteria food line poses a question regarding the use of food trays.

“Do you really need me?”

A large number of colleges nationally are answering: “No.”

Randolph College and Liberty University are both part of a growing trend to do away with trays in the cafeteria.

Participating schools say the movement encourages less food waste, the use of less water and cleaning chemicals and perhaps even healthier
students.

“We’ve been able to save so much water from not having to be washing barely dirty, mostly unused trays,” said student Katelin Shugart-Schmidt, a junior in the college’s environmental club. “There’s a huge benefit.”

Randolph went trayless this year after students in the club approached the school’s Food Services Director Mitch Rodhe, who is contracted through Aramark food services.

“They wanted to go green,” Rodhe said. “Sustainability is a huge push.”

The Aramark flyers note that each tray needs a half-gallon of heated water for one wash, and that the average student throws away five ounces of uneaten food when using a tray.

Last spring, Liberty University became the first college in Central Virginia to do away with its trays.

Each student now carries each plate and drink separately— which can be tricky to get used to, but encourages students to pile on less food, and therefore waste less, said Elizabeth VanWingerden, marketing manager for Liberty Dining.

“I’ve heard from some male students who just pile up their tray,” she said. “I had one come up to me and say, ‘I realized I don’t need as much as I used to take.’”

Since going trayless, the school has had a 10 percent reduction in food waste and a 3 percent decrease in its entire food budget.

“It has really helped with the food services here,” VanWingerden said. “We’ve been able to offer better products and a better menu since we have had cost
savings.”

The college also is saving on water use and on cleaning chemicals, she said.

“We serve around 3,000 students at lunch, and with 3,000 trays going through the dish machine, there’s a lot of water use,” she said. “The less chemicals we can use, the better — that’s less chemicals going down the drain.”

With more and more colleges adopting the practice, Lynchburg College and Sweet Briar College also are looking into it.

LC in November is planning a food “weigh-in” — where students weigh how much food they throw away after eating.

The school will do one weigh-in while students use trays, and one while students don’t, to see if there’s a difference, said Jamey Pavey, chair of the school’s Natural Resources Committee.

She anticipates more waste when students use trays.

“With the trays, you can get multiple plates and pile things up,” she said.

But before adopting any changes in the cafeteria, the school would like to gauge whether students support a switch, she said.

Sweet Briar’s Director of Auxiliary Services Steve Edwards also wants to see how students like the idea.

“We would like to incorporate a trayless Tuesday or something soon,” he said. “I’m hoping that we’ll be able to test it out this semester.”

At Randolph, students have mostly welcomed the transition once they learned the reasoning behind it, said Shugart-Schmidt.

The only downside: students may have to work harder to find the trays, which often double as sleds in the winter at both Randolph and Liberty.

“Maybe our students will get some trays at Christmas,” VanWingerden said.