Last semester, I had the opportunity to interview Andrea Hughes and Aaron Furtner with Naz Dining for my final project in Writing for Digital Media. I figured I would share it on here for a bit more context on how Nazareth College handles food allergies!
I'm super appreciative of the time Andrea and Aaron took to speak with me, enjoy reading!
For Andrea Hughes, her empathetic commitment to guaranteeing the safest dining experience possible for all students strikes a personal chord.
Hughes, the Marketing Supervisor for Nazareth Dining, has been at Nazareth College with Sodexo, the world’s leading provider of catering and food services, for four and a half years, and has been in the hospitality business for twenty years now.
She as well as her daughter, a sophomore in college, both live with Celiac Disease, fueling her compassion for developing allergen stations in the Nazareth dining hall.
“I think one of the things I’ve done here is I’ve become a voice for kids that come with allergens to meet with and feel like they have somebody to talk to,” Hughes expressed.
Upon realizing the sheer number of students on campus, especially in this day and age, with a vast variety of dietary restrictions, Hughes believed it was crucial for them to see somebody — herself — eating at Naz with allergies on a daily basis.
She felt compelled to become a point of connection for students, talking to them, texting them, and walking them through the dining hall safely to diminish any anxiety surrounding eating away from home.
Hughes has been navigating the Nazareth dining operations for the last five years with Celiac, and has “never gotten sick here, ever.”
It’s reassuring for students with allergies to know that someone with such an imperative role and influence in Naz dining relates firsthand to their experiences, and truly has their best interests at heart.
One of the initiatives Hughes has played a pivotal role in developing during her time at Naz is My Zone, a nut free and gluten free pantry designed specifically to provide a plethora of safe meals for students with severe allergies.
Located right at the front of the dining hall, My Zone is stocked with pre-packaged meals reflecting all allergen info on the labels. The designated area additionally houses a completely separate toaster and two microwaves for solely gluten free and nut free items, allowing students to steer clear from cross contamination in the main appliances used for an array of foods.
In tandem with My Zone, Simple Servings is another completely allergen free station. This buffet opportunity offers two meals both for lunch and for dinner each day which are entirely free of the top eight allergens.
Aaron Furtner, the Dining Commons Sous Chef who just recently joined the team in April 2021, explains how all Simple Servings meals are prepared in a separate area with it’s own cooler, steamer, oven, and even hot box to hold the food.
Furtner, who brings almost twenty years of experience in the restaurant and hospitality industry, conveys that they try to have the same staff members always prepare the Simple Servings food, “that way they understand some of the common recipes… but also they know all of those small, but necessary, steps to prevent cross contamination.”
Students with allergies should not feel limited to these two stations, however, as there are several ways to navigate eating at the dining hall more broadly as well.
Signage is prevalent throughout the dining commons, clearly indicating the foods containing any of the main eight allergens. The Naz dining team has taken further steps by segregating allergens in the salad bar unit, as well as separating dairy products at the smoothie bar.
Hughes encourages students to always speak up and ask an attendant if they have any concerns — which is what she does personally to avoid the chance of cross contact — as they are more than willing to grab items from the back.
Correspondingly, both mainstream on-campus dining locations — The Cab and Roost — take similar protocols.
Hughes shares how she would handle eating at these operations, not only by specifying her allergens in her order, but also by taking the extra action to call over with a simple, “Hey I just put an order in you guys and I just want to let you know I have Celiac, so I have to make sure that dish is made gluten free.”
Likewise to Simple Servings, this prompts those preparing the food to use different cutting boards, different knives, a different part of the grill, different blenders, etc.
Although maneuvering through eating at college with food allergies certainly poses significant challenges, Hughes and Furtner make it their mission to ensure every student at Nazareth enjoys the best conceivable dining experience.
“Let’s face it,” Hughes asserts, “being a college kid is a lot harder nowadays than it used to be, and also that’s an added stress — eating properly and not getting sick.”
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