This semester, Ithaca College Dining Services will have new recipes in dining halls, energy initiatives to reduce their carbon footprint and an online ordering system called Webfood.

Jeff Scott, general manager of Sodexo, said dining services added an additional option to the vegan station in the Campus Center Dining Hall. Instead of only having one entrée each day, there are now two. The vegan station is also open Saturdays and Sundays when previously it was not.

“For those who were trying to adhere to a strict vegan diet, we were hearing that our offerings were a bit limited,” he said. “[Students] enjoyed the food we were preparing for the most part but wanted more variety.”

Julie Whitten, marketing manager for dining services, said Sodexo is making new vegetarian meals. She said the company got feedback from the IC Vegetarian club and responded with new recipes.

“We took most of their concerns into consideration,” she said.

Freshman Katie Gaines has been a vegetarian for the past nine years and said it was very hard to keep a balanced diet at the dining hall.

“They never serve enough protein with their dishes,” she said. “It’s all starch or vegetables, and it’s not even good for you.”

Roger Guarino, a chef in Campus Center, said there are also new options to regular dining.

“We’ve put in some new recipes and changed quite a few,” he said. “It’s not the same old, same old.”

After winter break, Pacific Traders, an Asian cuisine station offering a variety of Chinese entrées, opened in IC Square. Scott said purchases at the previous station, La Tierra del Sol, were declining and there was an interest from students to have Asian cuisine.

She said all of the containers the food is served in are compostable, adding to the college’s new energy initiatives.

Scott said though the college’s dining services have been proactive for the past few years through composting, recycling and initiating trayless dining at the Towers Dining Hall, they are a large energy user and have not really addressed reducing energy.

Since Jan. 5, specialists have been taking inventory and assessing every piece of equipment that utilizes energy. Three interns from the college have been working with Sodexo on this energy audit to help the dining halls reduce power.

“There’s really going to be some significant opportunities for energy savings ... so we reduce our carbon footprint, which should translate into reduction of dollars spent on power,” Scott said.

Along with energy initiatives, dining services has implemented Webfood, a new online food ordering system. Students, faculty and staff can order food from La Vincita up to 24 hours in advance and pick up their food from the Webfood window. While students cannot presently pay for Webfood with credit and debit cards, Scott said dining services is working to make this happen as soon as possible.

“We’re kind of starting with the La Vincita area in hopes that it will do really well and we will be able to expand it to other areas,” Whitten said.  

Scott said he heard about the idea from Cornell University a couple of years ago and had hoped to implement it at the beginning of the year. He said he is excited to finally get the program running.

“We try to bring new things each semester,” he said. “We welcome feedback, good and bad, so if students have comments, we love to hear from them.”