I feel that the biggest driver for change in noncommercial foodservice will be labor. I know that today we are struggling to employ quality staff as well as retain said staff after long breaks and holidays. Our challenge is to meet the needs and expectations of parents and students with less and less staff. Already it is affecting our menu sizes and from-scratch applications. As foodservice evolves, it has gotten easier on a lot of fronts with biometric scanning, ordering from apps, more partially prepared items, as well as some other things, but who is going to be there to handle it? I have seen the enormous-footprint vending machines, which are basically a store that runs itself, and I can see more validity in that approach.
Dewey McMurrey
Executive Chef
Texas Tech University
Lubbock, Texas