Putting our money where our mouths are: N.J.-based Gourmet Dining becomes Rowan food supplier

For the next ten years, a New Jersey catering company using New Jersey grown foods will be feeding over 12,000 faculty, students and staff at the largest university in South Jersey. 

Rowan has chosen as its new food supplier Madison-based Gourmet Dining, LLC, a family-owned enterprise whose business model favors locally grown produce, healthful eating options and great variety.

Gourmet Dining, which is scheduled to begin Rowan operations on or before July 1, provides food service to about a dozen colleges and universities in New Jersey and New York including Seton Hall, N.J.I.T., Kean and Manhattan College.

Full details about Gourmet Dining’s plans for Rowan have yet to be released but a video on their website promotes a great variety of choices including make-your-own pasta and stir fry stations, cereal and deli options, an omelet station featuring cage-free eggs and free-range chickens, fresh sushi, homemade pizza, carving stations, and more.

Gourmet Dining President Michael Frungillo said the company will maintain all existing food stations in Rowan’s main dining hall, the Marketplace, and add new ones.

“Starting this summer we’ll also have an allergy free and gluten free station, kosher and hallal food stations, rotisserie chicken, a carvery for roast turkeys, steak, and salmon, and a whole lot more,” Frungillo said.

He said Gourmet Dining, which has held some of its higher education accounts for as long as 25 years, plans an entirely new approach for Rowan including the possible addition of a new franchise in the Student Center’s lower level food court, a new coffee and food kiosk to replace Jazzman’s Café in the Student Center Pit, and a mobile Rowan Diner food truck, possibly on the south side of the Glassboro campus near Memorial Hall.

The company, which will also take over food service operations for Rowan’s Camden and Stratford campuses, may add kiosks in Campbell Library, Rowan Hall and the Student Recreation Center.

“We’re very excited about the opportunity to serve Rowan,” Frungillo said. “The University is enjoying an incredible growth phase and we’re looking forward to being a part of it.”

Gourmet Dining replaces Sodexo, Rowan’s food vendor for the past 11 years, but both Sodexo and Aramark, another large commercial vendor, submitted proposals for the new Rowan 10-year contract.  Non-management employees of Sodexo are being invited to apply for positions with Gourmet Dining. 

During the contract period Gourmet Dining will hire a full-time dietician to advise the University’s students, faculty and staff about healthy eating choices and it will hold special promotions, including an annual “Biggest Loser” competition, to challenge members of the Rowan community to maintain a healthy weight, Frungillo said.

Besides physical changes in the main dining hall, Frungillo said a contest will be held to choose a new name.

In an expansion of Rowan’s commitment to the community, the new contract will enable students to spend a portion of their food plan dollars at restaurants along Rowan Boulevard.

“Through our ‘Boro Bucks’ program, students help support the local economy and have more dining options,” said Rowan President Ali A. Houshmand. “The new food services contract will encourage students to eat along Rowan Boulevard, and that’s a benefit to both students and our business partners.”

At a University-wide meeting May 2, Dr. Houshmand noted that a committee of administrators and students had considered four possible vendors and concluded that Gourmet Dining, with its commitment to varied, high quality, nutritious food options and decades long experience in higher education was the best choice.