Students negotiating to reduce the $19.12-a-meal cost of Northwestern’s proposed kosher plan could be eating cheaper by the end of the quarter, university officials said Thursday.
Students who keep kosher and Jewish leaders met Friday with representatives from NU and Sodexho Marriott Food Services, who agreed to consider ways to reduce the proposed plan’s costs.
Although they reached no concrete conclusions, the students said they proposed making one university dining hall completely kosher or contracting with the Louis and Saerree Fiedler Hillel Center to serve students kosher food.
The university also is considering subsidizing the kosher meal plan to cut students’ costs, said Bill Banis, interim vice president for student affairs.
“We’re trying to assess the cost of every conceivable option,” he said. “We’ll take a look at what might be possible. We just want a cost-feasible solution.”
Paul Komelasky, Sodexho Marriott’s district manager, said he will compare NU’s kosher plan with those of other colleges before making a decision. Many Ivy League universities offer kosher meals for the same price as their regular meal plans, and others subsidize the program’s costs.
“The question now is how do we bring it together and how do we get the numbers in place.” Komelasky said. “We’re looking at everything.”
Kosher meat must be slaughtered according to Jewish dietary law. Jews who keep kosher are not allowed to eat milk and meat in the same meal.
Muslim students who follow a similar diet called halal have said they also might be interested in purchasing kosher meals from the university.
Before students raised the issue, NU’s proposed kosher plan cost $5,163 a year, about $2,000 more than NU’s traditional 13-meal plan. Many students who keep kosher said they wouldn’t pay for the proposed plan and that they had been reduced to eating stale bread and weeks-old tuna fish.
Komelasky said the cost for the proposed kosher plan stemmed from the high price of having the meals catered instead of prepared in NU dining halls. NU does not have the resources to create an on-campus kosher kitchen, he said.
But that might change before December, Komelasky said. For Sodexho Marriott to significantly reduce the kosher meal plan’s costs, he said, the university must either create an on-campus kosher kitchen or subsidize the meal plan — options that students and administrators are discussing.
Some students who keep kosher said they were encouraged by the meeting and that they hoped the university would integrate kosher food into its regular meal plan.
“It’s a very important issue,” said Mark Dredze, a McCormick sophomore. “We just want to make sure all students can eat in the dining halls. We don’t want to segregate any group of students.”
NU currently offers one kosher meal plan — a frozen-food option that allows students to microwave their dinners in dining halls — in addition to the proposed $19.12-a-meal catering plan.
Komelasky has said he needs 30 students to implement the catering plan, but no one has signed up.
Although some students had accused the university of discriminating against Jews, Hillel Director Jonathan Wolf said NU’s desire to save money motivated the price of the proposed plan.
“It’s not anti-semitism. It’s not anything against multiculturalism,” he said. “They’re just cheap.”
