On April 10, Luther College President Brad Chamberlain announced that the college’s dining provider for all food services will be switching from Sodexo to Bon Appétit Management Company, effective June 1 and lasting the next decade.

Bon Appétit was selected as Luther’s new dining provider after a half-year evaluation, beating out five other companies in the process, and will replace Sodexo, the French food supplier conglomerate that has been working with Luther since 2009. 

The California-based provider prides itself on its “chef-driven approach,” with original menus being tailored for each school they work with, and cooks their food from scratch while sourcing from more local farms and suppliers than most other catering companies. Bon Appétit plans on making investments in the Cafeteria and other dining locations around campus.

Other liberal arts colleges in the area have been contracting with Bon Appétit, including:

• Cornell College, Mount Vernon, IA
• St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN
• Carleton College, Northfield, MN
• Macalester College, St. Paul, MN

With Sodexo’s contract set to expire soon, talks of a new provider for Luther have been circulating for some time. Tanner Peters (‘27), one of dining services’ student managers, has kept up with these conversations.

“I started hearing about changes after J-Term,” said Peters. “I knew ahead of time that dining services was having open bids for new companies to potentially be coming in and take over, but I was very skeptical. I thought, ‘we already have a pretty decent service with Sodexo’, but it turns out that Bon Appétit won the bid.”

Peters also gave insight into more specific changes that will come about with the introduction of Bon Appétit. A potential benefit of going from a foreign food giant to a smaller domestically based company is increased food quality. Peters was sure to point out the primary benefit of this transition for the student body: the opportunity for an increase in the quality of food available.

“It looks like the food’s going to be a lot better than what it is now,” Peters said. “Bon Appétit has a reputation of making everything from scratch, which would just make food quality skyrocket and make it a lot better for students.” 

Peters also touched on some of Bon Appétit’s plans for the ergonomics of Luther’s dining facilities, fresh out of a staff meeting the evening prior. 

“Nordic Brew’s going to be in a different spot, and there’s talk of adding a whole new place in Regents for athletes to get food and protein shakes and things like that,” Peters said.

There appears to be enthusiasm from the student body for a new food provider to take charge at Luther. First-year Kendall Moritz (‘28) is excited to see what this change will bring. 

“I’m excited to try [Bon Appétit’s food],” Moritz said. “From what I’ve heard it’s supposedly really good, so I’m optimistic.”

As for the staff, the team members (a.k.a. “whitecoats”) that currently work in dining services will be re-trained by staff from Bon Appétit in the coming weeks on how to cook increasingly from scratch, onboarding that will ensure a smooth transition to a new provider. Vice President for Finance and Administration Patti Hetrick said the following about the dining staff:

“We’re appreciative of Bon Appétit’s willingness to provide support to the current food service team working at Luther,” Hetrick said. “It was very important to us that the people working here had opportunities to stay.”

There is an unfortunate downside to this transition for some, however, as Peters explains.

“It sounds like [Bon Appétit’s] only focused on keeping whitecoats,” Peters said. “Student managers like me are going to get cut off, and we’re going to have to shift back to Luther College payment, which kind of sucks because we end up having limited hours. Sodexo let us work as much as we wanted to and could, up to 40 hours like any full-time job, and many student managers took full advantage of that, working up to 20 hours a week to help pay off college costs.”

Despite this apparent hurdle for the student managers, he remains hopeful that Bon Appétit will choose to follow in Sodexo’s footsteps when it comes to letting student managers work under their jurisdiction.

Bon Appétit coming to Luther College this June will bring many changes to the dining experience on campus. Bon Appétit is presented with the opportunity to have an impact on the quality of food and quality of life for the student body and broader Luther community as a whole.

This story was originally published in the CHIPS print edition released 5/12/25.