Food prices: Too much or just right?

While the salad bar is easy, Pepperdine's dining service's price point leaves much to be desired. (Photo by Diana Kim)

Food prices at Pepperdine cause students, faculty and even Sodexo workers to wonder if they are getting the best value for their money.

A 65-person survey in fall 2013 showed that 91 percent of the students, faculty and staff would rather eat off campus or cook for themselves to save money. The survey showed 94 percent of those surveyed said they feel the food prices at Pepperdine are too high, while 4.5 percent found the prices to be fair. While Pepperdine’s meal plans are on par with other universities, most students said they find it much cheaper to buy their food at Ralphs. For some though, the convenience of the Caf cannot be beat, even despite its cost.

“I’m a starving college student,” junior advertising major Becca Belliveau said. “I can’t afford the food here.”

Belliveau said she enjoys the food here, but she thinks it is too expensive. Currently, she lives on campus and has a meal plan through the university.

“I feel like everyone has a meal plan, and if my friends want to go to lunch they are going to go to the Caf and I don’t want to be stuck borrowing their points, so I always get a meal plan,” Belliveau said.

Students are not the only ones who think the food prices are too high; some of the dining staff and teachers do as well.

“I think the quality if the food has slipped slightly,” Public Relations Professor Denise Ferguson said. “The speed is good and there is a wide variety to some extent.”

Ferguson said she only eats in the cafeteria about once per month, and in the faculty dining facility about twice per month. She said the last time she was in the cafeteria, she received a very small portion and it cost her $6.99.

Although many people at the university find the prices to be too expensive, others said they think they are fair.

“I really don’t have a problem with the cost,” junior business major Arianna Roberts said. “I think the price is reasonable because we have a lot of variety to choose from and they prepare the food for us.”

Roberts said she feels lucky to be at a university that puts so much effort into their food.

David Chavez, a dining worker at Nature’s Edge, said he thinks the prices are very fair at Pepperdine.

Currently, Sodexo provides Pepperdine with its dining services, said Elizabeth Nepute, the director for Pepperdine Dining Services.

“Sodexo has been at Pepperdine for about 35 years. This is a very long partnership, something we are very proud of and every day stride to keep it that way,” Nepute said.

Nepute has been working at Pepperdine for two years now, and she said she thinks Pepperdine has made improvements to their food service in that small amount of time.

“We have a very close partnership with the school and constantly communicate on what is going well and where there is room for improvement,” Nepute said.

When compared to other schools, Pepperdine seems to be average on the payment scale. At Loyola Marymount University, which is relatively similar to Pepperdine in demographics, Sodexo is also used for their dining services, according to the school’s website. LMU also has a variety of different meal plans, much like Pepperdine.

At LMU, the prices for different plans range from $1,300 to $1,690 a semester. At Pepperdine, the prices for a meal plan range from $750 to $2,800 a semester, according to Pepperdine’s website. While Pepperdine offers a larger range of plan options, both schools have similar prices when purchasing a meal plan for a year.

However, University of California Santa Barbara has a vastly different price range than Pepperdine or LMU. At UCSB, the meal plans range from $300 to $900 for the entire year, according to the website.

At UCSB, student pay for a certain amount of times they can visit a dining room area per week, and when they are there they can have as much food as they want, according to the website.

At UCSB, an average balanced meal that contains a protein, carbohydrates and vegetables costs around $11; however, you can take as much food as you would like, including drinks, fruit, salad and dessert. At Pepperdine, a balanced meal costs approximately $7, however the meal is a set portion and does not come with a drink, fruit, salad or dessert. To have these things with your meal, you would have to pay extra. A drink would cost you around $2 depending on what you get, fruit is around $1.50, a small side salad is around $1.50 and dessert is around $3.99. These items could raise the price of your meal to $16.

“I really like the food plan we have, because it seems pretty cheap and we get a lot of food for our money,” Laura Dyer, a junior business major at UCSB, said.

She said that although she likes the food and the cost, she doesn’t think the quality of the food is that great.

“It all seems pretty unhealthy to me,” Dyer said. “I’m a vegetarian, so it’s hard enough as it is to find things for me to eat, but I feel like all of the food options here are just super unhealthy.”

Sarah Dilts, a sophomore at Pepperdine, said she was shocked that UCSB’s meal plans were so much cheaper than Pepperdine’s.

“I don’t get why our food is so much more expensive; it seems like we have pretty average food,” Dilts said.

Students who feel the Caf is not worth their money often buy their groceries off campus at Ralphs.

“I really don’t like the food here and I think it is way too much money for what it is, so I just grocery shop at Ralphs and make my own food,” junior business major Michael Sweat said.

On a recent shopping trip, Sweat spent $40 on his groceries. He said the amount of food he bought should last him around two and a half weeks, if he makes his own breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. For his lunches, Sweat bought two bags of wheat rolls for $3.69 a bag, one pound of shaved white turkey for $4.99, a nine-ounce bottle of mustard for $1.99 and two packs of 16 slices of cheese for $3.19. This would mean that his daily lunch would cost approximately $2 a day. At the Caf, a plain turkey sandwich costs $3.99.

When comparing the food prices at Pepperdine to the food prices at Ralphs, there are a number of items that differ in price. One example is a one liter bottle of Smartwater. In the Caf, this costs $2.99, while at Ralphs the same thing costs $1.79.

Other items, such as fruits and vegetables, are more difficult to calculate. At Pepperdine, a single green apple costs $1.19, while at Ralphs, the price for green apples is $1.99 a pound. This would mean that one green apple at Ralphs would cost approximately $0.87.

Another meal option that costs considerably less at Ralphs than at the Caf is a salad. At the Caf, a salad costs $6.19 a pound. This means a plain salad with lettuce, croutons, hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes, spinach and two ounces of dressing would cost approximately $5.60. At Ralphs, you can buy a head of fresh lettuce for $1.60 (one head of lettuce weighs approximately one pound), five ounces of croutons for $1.99, 16 ounces of dressing for $2.29, a six-ounce bag of spinach for $3.99, a dozen eggs for $2.00 and four fresh tomatoes for approximately $0.85 each. With all this, you could create four big salads for less than $4 each, and have eggs leftover for breakfast.  

Sweat said he thinks he saves money when he shops off campus for his groceries.

“It would be nice to be able to eat on campus,” he said, “but I am already spending a lot of money to go to this school and I really think it’s cheaper to buy my food and cook for myself.”

Tayler White completed this story in Dr. Christina Littlefield’s fall 2013 Jour 241 class.