From fields to food shelters: the journey UGA food takes

By Ashly Luckose

For Sagar Patel, the university dining halls are magical: places with unlimited stacks of cheese pizza, mountains of nachos, mile-long pile of bread bowls and oceans of red Powerade, places with food that seemingly never spoils.

“It’s as if all that food comes out of the air almost,” said Patel, a senior political science major from Lilburn, Ga., “and it’s all here, always, everyday.”

But it’s not always there.

According to J. Michael Floyd, executive director of food services, the four dining halls are only a stop in its long journey – a journey that begins at farms and factories, continues on to the plates of hungry students, and ends finally inside the kitchens of food shelters and counseling centers around Athens.

He said the three-step journey is a continuous one, which to some may seem magical but is actually normal in the food business.

“We start by purchasing and preparing our own food, like most restaurants,” Floyd said. “And we get the same things you get in the grocery store, only we buy in larger quantities and skip the store altogether.”

Floyd said all of the university’s food is bought from manufactures, unlike most public schools, which get a lot of their food from government subsidy programs.

Fourth-year students, such as Patel, have gotten used to University of Georgia’s take on school food, which is different from what they were used to in high school.

“I remember eating what passed for bread in high school – I’m positive now, certain, that wasn’t bread,” Patel said. “The bread here actually tastes like bread.”

The second stage in the food’s journey is a familiar sight to many UGA students: the stainless-steel trays and the tables covered with cutlery and condiments spread throughout the four dining halls.

Here, the meat is grilled, the cheese is shredded, the cookies are baked and the milk is chilled. According Courtney Burnett, a junior majoring in linguistics from Savanna, Ga., who works mornings at a dining hall, it’s where people with nametags are always doing something with the food.

“We’re always checking it to see if it’s healthy, if it’s cold or hot enough,” Burnett said. “If it’s not up to par, we pull it and replace it.”

Burnett said because so much food comes through the dining halls, it may seem like there’s a lot of waste, but the dining halls really do try to salvage as much food as possible.

In fact, according to Floyd, nothing is wasted and almost everything is used -- It’s given to Full Plate, a non-profit organization that collects and delivers food to local community groups such as The Salvation Army and outreach programs like Project Safe.

Every day, inside the Full Plate van, packed tightly into certified food safety containers and sealed plastic bags, the food is transported to the third and final part of its journey.

Stacey Favors, program manager and van driver for Full Plate, said the university community should feel good that the food is going to feed the needy and not to a landfill, especially in these economic times when a little bit can mean a lot.

“We’re seeing more and more people at the soup kitchens,” she said. “We know the food we deliver is making a huge difference. Now, these non-profits can spend some more money on programs to help people and not have to use it all for food.”

Founded in 1987, Full Plate has worked with UGA for over a decade. The university is its biggest donor. Floyd said the history with Full Plate has been full of success, a situation where everyone wins.

“We have been working with Full Plate for about 15 years now,” he added. “We believe in their cause, and it really helps the Athens community.”

And each new day, at some factory or farm, the journey starts again, almost like magic.
To donate money or food to Full Plate, call Stacey Favors at (706) 546 8293.

Edited by Ashley Thompson