Reading Time: 8 minutes
Key Topics: Allergen Management, Technology Integration, Labor Solutions, Culinary Innovation
Author: Sojo Alex, Executive Principal, Envision Strategies
Featured Interviews:
Cheryl Berry, Associate Director of Marketing and Communications, Michigan State University
Brian Grove, Director of Dining Services, Virginia Tech
Watch the Full Video Interviews Here – Part 1 | Part 2
The Challenge of Scale
When you’re feeding over 50,000 students across multiple dining halls like Michigan State, or managing 56 different retail concepts for 30,000 students like Virginia Tech, the complexities multiply exponentially. Both universities have built nationally recognized dining programs, but success at this scale requires constant innovation in allergen management, workforce development, and technology integration.
What sets these programs apart is how they’re tackling these complexities head-on with strategic solutions that prioritize student safety, operational excellence, and genuine culinary innovation.
Making Safety Inclusive: The Allergen Management Imperative
For Brian Grove, Director of Dining Services at Virginia Tech, allergen management represents one of the most pressing challenges facing campus dining today. “Parents put a lot of trust in us,” Grove explains. “It’s getting earlier and earlier. Students who are prospective, not even enrolled, call us up and they’re having those conversations.”
Virginia Tech’s approach begins with one-on-one conversations between their two dietitians and families before students even decide to attend. Technology plays a crucial role in their safety net through digital signage integration that displays allergen icons at the point of sale. “If some product comes in and it’s changed for the day, we can change that right on a dime in our menu management system, and it’s reflected on our app and our digital signage,” Grove notes.
Virginia Tech is now introducing a completely top-nine allergen-free certified venue within their all-you-care-to-eat facility, opening in fall 2026.
Michigan State took a different approach six years ago when they opened Thrive, a dedicated dining hall completely free of the top nine major allergens. For Cheryl Berry, Associate Director of Marketing and Communications at Michigan State, this facility has become a crucial recruitment tool. “Students have made decisions to come to our campus because of that dining hall,” Berry shares.
But both universities are careful to avoid segregating students with allergies. Virginia Tech ensures allergen-friendly options are available throughout all their locations. “We try to ensure that we have a variety throughout so they can go to any location,” Grove explains. “You got to meet the students where they’re at and their comfort level.”
The Labor Puzzle: From Recruitment to Retention
The labor challenges facing campus dining have evolved beyond simple staffing shortages. For Virginia Tech, located in Blacksburg, the issue is skilled culinary talent. “The market we’re in is not a draw for culinary talent,” Grove acknowledges. “Our philosophy has changed. You got to hire somebody who hopefully has a will to grow and learn.”
Virginia Tech’s chefs now take entry-level employees and teach them fundamental culinary techniques. To manage the overwhelming nature of non-stop foodservice for new hires, Grove’s team is creating a video series to set realistic expectations before employees even start.
Both universities have developed sophisticated approaches to student employee retention. Virginia Tech created a tiered system with titles like Student Assistant Manager and General Manager. “We’re always training, always telling them you’re getting real world experience. It’s gonna look great on a resume,” Grove says.
Michigan State focuses on rapid advancement opportunities. “After 30 or 60 days, you can bump up to a management role, and that can keep progressing,” Berry explains.
Both leaders emphasize simple appreciation as fundamental to retention. “If students can make one connection with one full-time team member, you’ll hold them in the position,” Berry notes. “It’s when they don’t feel connected and they don’t feel appreciated that they’re probably just not going to stay with you.”
The Technology Integration Challenge
While customer-facing technologies like mobile ordering have become standard, both universities identified a crucial gap: the lack of integration between different systems.
“Once you start down a path, it’s very difficult to change,” Berry observes. “You’re not going to find one system that’s going to do it all, so you have different technologies that are going to have to blend together somehow.”
Virginia Tech’s digital signage integration illustrates both the potential and the challenges. “Our system was so big, there were so many recipes in it, it bogged down the menu system,” Grove recalls. “We challenged the company. We challenged our food management system. They had to work together.”
The persistence paid off, demonstrating that when universities push vendors to solve integration problems, the solutions benefit the entire industry. “A lot of times when you solve the issue for one campus, it’ll go all the way around the country,” Grove notes. “If I could solve it at Virginia Tech, it would help Michigan State.”
Culinary Excellence as Competitive Advantage
Both universities have built reputations for exceptional culinary programs through intentional strategies for development and innovation.
At Michigan State, culinary freedom drives excellence. “Each of our chefs create their own menus,” Berry explains. “Because we have chefs from all over the world, they bring their own flair, and everything’s very unique.”
Virginia Tech’s approach centers on strategic talent development. “We employ executive chefs in every one of our facilities. They have a chef de cuisine, they have a sous chef,” Grove says. Nearly all their executive chefs are certified, with clear advancement pathways from first cook through executive roles.
When Virginia Tech prepared to open Perry Place, their new state-of-the-art facility, the team visited Austin and Kansas City to eat at 16 different barbecue restaurants and conduct back-of-the-house tours. The result is Smoke, now the number-one concept in the facility.
Both programs actively encourage their culinary teams to compete and seek external inspiration. Virginia Tech creates internal competition between dining centers, tracking revenue and daily transactions. “They take great pride in it, and there’s a little bit of camaraderie with that,” Grove notes.
Innovation in Practice
Recent projects at both universities demonstrate how strategic thinking can transform spaces and refresh brand connections.
At Michigan State, the team converted an outdated all-you-care-to-eat dining hall into grab-and-go retail, then transformed the remaining dated seating space with furniture from the university’s surplus store into comfortable hangout spaces with gaming areas and flexible seating. “It has really taken off,” Berry shares.
The university is also refreshing their iconic Sparty’s brand, which had used the same logo since 2008-2009. “The super loud colors don’t always resonate anymore,” Berry explains.
Michigan State also converted a retail space into a trendy new concept featuring bagel sandwiches and Derby sodas, demonstrating their commitment to staying current with food trends.
Overcoming Administrative Roadblocks
Grove’s frank discussion about administrative resistance to innovation reveals a common challenge in higher education. “You bring something brand new to the campus, it’s a foreign concept,” he explains. “We’re in higher ed. Technology ought to be in the forefront. We should be embracing it, but we’re very conservative with brand new things.”
Virginia Tech’s journey to implement cashierless technology illustrates this challenge. Despite discussing the concept for a decade, getting approval required persistent advocacy.”We are persistent. We never give up. They ask us 1,000 questions, we answer every one,” Grove says. “I’m not giving up, we’re not giving up, because it’s about the student experience. It’s what the students want.”
The cashierless technology launches in fall 2025. Grove’s advice to other dining leaders is simple: never give up, because the goal is always serving students better.
Key Takeaways for Dining Leaders
- Allergen management requires multiple approaches: Combine dedicated safe spaces with cross-facility options to give students both security and freedom of choice
- Solve integration challenges for the industry: When you push technology vendors to solve problems, the solutions benefit programs nationwide
- Invest in culinary talent development: Create clear advancement pathways, provide external learning opportunities, and give chefs creative freedom within operational parameters
- Student retention starts with connection: One meaningful relationship with a full-time staff member can retain a student employee through their entire college career
- Persistence overcomes administrative resistance: Keep advocating for student-centered innovations, even when facing conservative decision-making cultures
- Competition drives excellence: Whether between dining centers or individual chefs, friendly competition pushes teams to innovate and improve
- Low-cost innovations can create major impact: Strategic furniture placement and space repurposing can transform underutilized areas into vibrant community spaces
Through strategic thinking, persistent advocacy, and unwavering focus on student experience, Michigan State and Virginia Tech demonstrate that even the most complex operational challenges can be overcome. Their approaches offer valuable roadmaps for dining leaders navigating similar complexities on their own campuses, proving that excellence at scale is achievable through thoughtful leadership and genuine commitment to continuous improvement.
