While the scale of dining at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics greatly outsizes that of even the largest public university or hospital system, foodservice at the 2016 Games is facing issues that even the smallest U.S. operators can understand—and solve. With less than a week of the competition gone, here are three major areas where problems have arisen, and how noncommercial FSDs might solve them.
Supply and demand
The International Olympic Committee estimates 480,000 tourists will descend on Rio de Janeiro from Aug. 5 to 21. With eight years to prepare for that crush of hungry fans (the city was selected in 2008), organizers should have been ready and waiting, right?
Not so much. The News of Australia reported wait times of 50 minutes or more in food lines Saturday, with corporate hospitality representatives making big group buys— “Will that be 30 or 40 beers or 27 popcorns?”—in the same lines as guests waiting to make a single purchase. Even worse, the Sydney Morning Herald reports, vendors at Maracana Stadium ran out of food an hour before Friday’s opening ceremonies commenced, and food outlets at tennis and rugby matches encountered the same problem Sunday.
Tech and logistical issues are to blame for some of the strife—diners must line up to purchase food tickets before lining up again to order and receive their food. Fans at Saturday’s U.S. vs. China basketball game were stymied when ticket printers broke, rendering them unable to purchase beer, says the Morning Herald.
Multiple self-serve checkout kiosks, like those at Sheetz’s c-store concept at West Virginia University, may have been an efficient solution to those massive lines. “Pay here” signs and impulse aisles define a path to checkout areas at the university concept, but within that queue are two self-service payment kiosks. Yale University’s Cafe Med also combats line issues with an express ordering counter for coffee and breakfast—a move that requires less labor than the traditional footprint.
Food insecurity
Here’s an area where Olympic organizers have the right idea. Reuters reports that Olympic Village chefs David Hertz from Brazil and Italian Massimo Bottura are working to turn surplus food from the village into 5,000 daily meals for needy Brazilians. "[The initiative] is going to work only with ingredients that are about to be wasted ... like ugly fruit and vegetables, or yogurt that is going to be wasted in two days if you don't buy it," Hertz told Reuters. U.N. data shows that hunger dropped to under 5% of Brazil’s 208 million people in 2015.
With an estimated 3,000 students affected by the lack of state funds in Pennsylvania last year, many public universities were tackling food insecurity for the first time. At Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, students in need were being matched up with those who had extra meals on their dining plan at the end of the Fall 2015 semester, says Leah Cassellia, director of student involvement. Meanwhile, at Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania, several departments, including Residential Life, Student Affairs and Student Senate, printed meal vouchers for the university to distribute to students in need. They also teamed up with the Student Senate to make 250 peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches for hungry students, says Nick Iula, resident district manager for Chartwells.
K-12 operators, however, are no strangers to food insecurity in their communities. Packing up nonperishable items to send home has been critical at Pueblo City Schools in Colorado, where 10% of the students also are homeless, says Jill Kidd, director of nutrition services. “We’re working on a food closet that a counselor will have access to … so students can get the resources they or their family might need,” Kidd says.
Reconcepting
While not an official part of Rio’s Olympic foodservice, open-air kiosks known as quiosques or barracas that serve drinks and light meals are an intregal part of the beach experience, Eater reports. Traditionally, the more than 300 government-owned stands serve as a casual way for beachgoers to eat and drink the day away. But with the influx of Olympic tourism dollars at play, sleeker corporate kiosks have appeared in place of the original shacks, with higher rents and cocktail selections that go beyond Brazilians’ traditional desires for beer and cachaca. It remains to be seen whether locals will welcome this change to their shores as the future comes to Rio.
At the University of Michigan, Director of Dining Steve Mangan advises ensuring a new concept’s longevity with features like wheeled stations and flexible-use equipment, since most operators only have the money to renovate every 30 or 40 years. The university leapt from “cook-and-park” stations to movable kiosks for the award-winning 2015 redesign of its South Quad dining hall. Chefs now cook and plate on-site, offering trendy concepts like sushi and barbecue that keep its diners’ desires front and center. “Scoop-and-serve dining doesn’t work for this generation,” Mangan says.