Officials Say Higher Prices Are Justified

by Kimberly Kelley

Des Moines, Iowa (Feb. 6, 1997)--Every day, Drake students roam through Hubbell Express or Olmsted Center cafeteria and purchase various food products without thinking twice about the price. But, for the observant student, it is easy to see that the prices of Drake food are sometimes considerably higher than the prices of the exact same products at local supermarkets.

For instance, a student can purchase a six-pack of Poland Springs water at Olmsted for $5.40. Yet, at Dahl's Foods, a local grocery store, the exact same six-pack of Poland Springs water costs $2.99. Why does the food at Drake cost more than the food in grocery stores?

According to Gretchen Thompson, assistant director of Hubbell Dining Services, you cannot compare grocery store prices to the prices at Drake because Drake is not a grocery store. Besides the initial product cost, Drake must also pay for handing, storage and wages for the staff working in the cafeterias and taking care of the food. Also, Drake buys from a different distributor than the grocery stores and has a different pricing structure.

So, should Drake students forego the meal plan and merely buy their own food from a grocery store? "You really have to look at the whole picture," Thompson said. "For older students maybe it's a good time to try it on their own, but it's going to end up taking them about an extra 15 hours a week to do their own grocery shopping and cooking. And what student has an extra 15 hours a week?"

Another plus to the Drake food system, Thompson said, is that Drake uses a daily declining balance system, meaning that students have a certain amount of money to spend everyday at anytime during that day. Other universities have taken to a "board plan," in which a student has a meal-by-meal account at one cafeteria and must eat their meals there. If they don't go to the cafeteria during the time allotted for lunch, then they miss lunch. But are Drake students really getting a fair deal with the money on their meal plans?

"Yes," said Thompson, "because we're here and open all the time and we're not telling them [the students] how to spend their money."

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