University of Washington Week 1!

Hello again from Seattle! Our first week flew by and was pretty packed. Overall we love it here: everyone is extremely nice and pleasant to work with. We both live in an on-campus apartment with a meal plan, and the food is DELICIOUS. Seriously, best dining hall food we have ever experienced. It makes eating enjoyable, but it is also exciting to work behind the scenes and see what needs to happen to produce such high quality food.

This came from the DINING HALL

Monday started out with introductions and sitting in on a few meetings. Our wonderful internship coordinator, Kara, got us acquainted with the office and campus. Then we got to sit in on a tasting of acai bowls to see if we want to bring them to campus. They were delicious! We ended the day by learning how to make the coffee that the campus coffee shops make. As coffee lovers we loved learning about where the beans come from and of course, drinking the coffee.

Making our own pour over cold brew

Tuesday started with a tour of all the dining units on campus. Then we had a meeting with the dining operations teams to discuss projects and goals of our time here at UW. We ended the day by sitting in on another meeting to discuss implementing a program that allows students to donate their leftover dining funds to students without funds for meals. We had never heard of a program like that, so it was really interesting to hear about what that could look like and the logistics that are involved.

On Wednesday we had a couple training sessions, including HR training and learning how to use the computer systems. We were introduced to our recipe clean up project, which will involve assisting the staff in standardizing recipes and entering them into CBORD. We also did some research regarding sustainable practices of other universities to see if there is any more we can do to be more sustainable in UW dining.

On Thursday we were introduced to our price benchmarking project, where we will compare the prices of surrounding markets and restaurants to UW prices. The goal is to see where we differ, why do we differ, and how we might be able to change the prices to be more competitive. After this introduction, we sat in on a meeting with all the dining administration, which turned into a webinar called Rethinking Breakfast. Later that afternoon we sat in on a meeting with the US Foods representative. UW  is switching their main food vendor to US Foods, so there is a lot that goes into making that a seamless transition. It was very interesting to hear about.

So many flavors!

The first half of Friday was dedicated to driving around to various markets surrounding the University that students might shop at. We walked around these stores and wrote down products and their prices. It was interesting to compare them to University prices and see which products are more/less expensive where. In the afternoon, we were able to attend an ice cream tasting with Tillamook ice cream. So. Much. Ice cream. It was heavenly! After the ice cream, we walked "the ave" which is where a majority of the off campus restaurants are located. We gathered prices while simultaneously tried to walk off some of that ice cream.

Our awesome internship coordinator, Kara, modeling the ice cream

This weekend we were able to do some more exploring! On Saturday we attended the local farmer's market which was awesome. There was live music and so many different kinds of vendors- we ended up buying delicious egg sandwiches, local ginger beer, and kombucha. We already scoped out what we want to try next week! After the market we headed downtown with other interns that work in HFS (housing and food services). We ate at a delicious restaurant known for its sourdough bread and pasta and then did some shopping. On the way back we were able to get some pictures with the W! On Sunday we did yoga in the morning and then rented a canoe and explored Union Bay of Lake Washington. There were some beautiful views and beautiful waterfront houses.

With the other interns!

Husky wannabes

Our beautiful canoe ride

We are excited to see what the coming week brings!