Bagels on display in a case at the C4C dining hall on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2023. (Jakob Gorham/CU Independent)
In a dining system that is supposedly structured directly according to the wishes of the consumers, the scarcity of everything bagels makes no sense.
Eating breakfast on campus is supposed to be relaxing. Peaceful. Fulfilling. Eating breakfast should not, however, be a mentally challenging activity. Unfortunately, many people, myself included, are forced to spend our morning eating time in a state of hopeless confusion, left guessing as to why there is a constant everything bagel shortage in our multi-million dollar dining halls.
Freshman Holden Johnson also finds the lack of his favorite flavor to be off-putting.
“It’s crazy that the only way to get an everything bagel is to wake up at seven in the morning. It doesn’t make sense why there is still a shortage when they are obviously the most popular flavor,” he said.
Despite my best efforts to fill the gaping hole in my first meal of the day, it eventually got to be too much, and I took it upon myself to investigate the problem. After reaching out to various members of the cooking staff, I spoke with Senior Executive Chef Eliah Golden, who provided valuable insight on the issue.
The process and the problem
One thing that quickly became apparent during our conversation was how vast and complex the dining system is as a whole. Navigating the difficulties of constant supply-chain issues, ever-changing menus, ingredient acquisition and many other tasks requires the staff’s utmost precision and consistency. CU Boulder gets its food from a variety of local, in-state and cross-country suppliers, depending on which manufacturers can best provide what is needed. Golden describes the process of procuring food orders as a “complex, daily, hands-on process for all of us.”
The dining team gets their bagel shipments from Moe’s Broadway Bagel, which is a Colorado-based bagel chain that has several locations in Boulder, Longmont and Denver. When asked about the choice, Golden said that they really like these bagels.
“They don’t come frozen, and they use organic wheat for their flour; even though they’ve had to increase their pricing by quite a lot over the last few years, we are maintaining loyalty to them because we see that the students really like their bagels. It’s often an item that they’re eating exclusively as their breakfast or lunch because it’s a really popular college-kid meal.”
Indeed it is! Statistics aside, anyone who has stepped foot inside of the C4C dining center during breakfast hours knows that bagels are some of the most sought-after items on the menu. In fact, I can think of one bagel in particular that is consistently gone every morning by 8:30, an hour and a half after opening. While all other bagel types are available from open to close, the nation’s most popular flavor, according to 2019 data, is confined to just one measly spot on the display and clean-out before most of us have even woken up. Meanwhile, plain bagels confidently fill up two or three spots, while other options like the tomato cheddar (which I can confidently say I have never seen someone eat) and cinnamon raisin bagels remain largely untouched throughout the morning.
The solution
This discrepancy in supply raises the golden questions: how do those responsible decide how many of each flavor to order, and why do they still order so few everything bagels when the demand is obviously much higher than that for the other types?
Chef Golden’s response was surprisingly simple and flexible. While touting the importance of a “variety of options” in defense of the less-popular flavors, she attributes the lack of everything bagels to a simple lack of communication.
“We try to showcase that there is a variety of bagels, but if you’re coming in an hour and a half after breakfast and they’re already gone, maybe that needs to be increased. Our food managers generally have a good finger on the pulse of what the students want, but if everything bagels are gone very early in the day, that tells me that we need to increase that number, and maybe decrease or eliminate a flavor that’s not as popular, or maybe switch out some of the plain bagels for the everything.”
She went on to stress the importance of student feedback.
“The only way we’re going to really know that we need to make that change is through student feedback,” she said. “I would love for students to engage with us in the moment instead of saying, ‘I went all year without so-and-so food.’ Just tell us to get more. We are very receptive and love to listen to our customers.”
It’s that simple. Golden cites the on-site staff in these dining halls as people who will listen to student opinions and raise them to higher management levels, as well as the QR codes at the exits of each dining hall, as productive methods to give feedback. When students utilize either of these things, the staff will communicate and do their best to make it happen, especially with everything bagels, which Golden says can easily be ordered in larger amounts if requested. It simply comes down to the expression of opinion from the customers.
While our conversation certainly brought this issue to her attention, I had not noticed a significant increase in everything bagel numbers in the week that followed. This suggests that a concerted effort is necessary to make a substantial change. If this issue matters to you as it does to me, I urge you to voice your opinion using the aforementioned means of communication in order to achieve bagel equity once and for all.
Contact CU Independent staff writer Jakob Gorham at Jakob.Gorham@colorado.edu.
