On Monday, Colorado Mesa University Director of Media Relations Dana Nunn sent an email to all students, staff and faculty. The email provided a link to the annual Sodexo Campus Dining Service Survey.

The survey asks basic questions: whether people are satisfied with the quality of hot entrees, taste, variety, value for money, availability of healthy foods, food presentation and more. It also asks which types of cuisine people would like to see more of, listing twelve options, including South American, Middle Eastern and Thai. It finishes by inquiring whether people with meal plans would get a meal plan again or whether they would upgrade to a better meal plan.

According to Nunn, Sodexo’s intent is to use the results they get from the survey to improve the services they provide. Sodexo, after all, is a business and to remain a popular choice as a dining service, they need to adapt to popular demand.

“If you’ve got an outlet that is not drawing customers then you have to look at what needs to be done to improve it or whether you might want to change your offerings to see if there’s some other product that would be more popular,” Nunn said.

The survey is an effective way for Sodexo to find out what needs to be improved or changed. Nunn mentioned the company’s increase in vegetarian options over the years, as well as the addition of gluten-free.

“Five years ago, nobody even talked about gluten-free,” Nunn said. “Today, it’s a big deal.”

Everything changes to suit modern culture. During the summer of 2016, Bookcliff Café was remodeled into Chick-fil-A, the Flat Top Grill and Bowls and Rolls. The University Center pizza place went away, but now there’s a new one in the library. Even as of fall this year, the Flat Top Grill revised their menu. Nunn recalled a period of time when Pizza Hut served on campus.

It’s important for a company like Sodexo to gather data on how they’re performing because if they don’t perform at the best level, they could potentially lose their contract with the school.

“The only exclusivity that Sodexo has on campus is providing service to students who live on campus,” Nunn said.

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They utilize meal plans, and they’re located conveniently all around campus. Sodexo has been CMU’s dining service for quite some time, but that’s only because they continue to prove that they’re worthy.

The school also puts out occasional surveys on-campus food service, and the results have been acceptable. Every two years, CMU puts the food service position out to bid for all vendors and so far, Sodexo keeps winning the contract.

“Overall, we’re satisfied with the service that Sodexo provides,” Nunn said. “If we were not, they would not continue winning the contract.” Nunn acknowledged that everything is not always perfect and that there’s always ways to improve, but that overall, Sodexo is satisfactory.

The survey opened on Monday, Oct. 2 and it closes on Saturday, Oct. 14.