Editor, the Tiger:

In the ongoing debate about whether Hampden-Sydney should go trayless, one of the championed reasons has been that ARAMARK will buy less food because students will waste less food. On this point, environmentalism aside, supporters of going trayless have championed the idea that since ARAMARK will be saving money when we go trayless, ARAMARK will then buy lower quantity, higher quality food using the same percentage of their internal budget as they are now. Since none of us have ever seen the contract ARAMARK has with the College, we have no idea what the requirements are (even if they exist) as to how much ARAMARK is required to spend on purchasing food with the money the College pays it for handling food service. 

What we do know is that ARAMARK, as a business, has the ultimate goal of maximizing profit for its owners by obtaining maximum revenue while having the lowest possible cost. By going trayless and the College presumably not renegotiating the contract with ARAMARK, we are lowering ARAMARK’s cost without a contemporaneous decrease in price or requirement to reuse the “saved” funds for a higher quality product, thereby increasing its profit. As a CEO, CFO, Owner, or Shareholder, would you pass up the chance to obtain more profit for your company? No, you’

d pocket the difference and in the interest of its owners and shareholders so should ARAMARK.

- Jared Christian ‘

12

Related posts:

1. Trayless Option Considered for Commons
2. Senate Rejects Going Trayless
3. Clearing Up the Trayless Issue
4. Going Trayless is Brainless
5. Regarding the Great Trayless Debate