20240521-181818.mp3 (online-audio-converter

Andy Chaplin is the general manager overseeing dining operations on a campus. He loves working with students and values the importance of good food in brightening someone's day. He trusts his executive chef to come up with menus but provides feedback and collaborates on improvements. They plan to find better ways to gather feedback from students. They prioritize allergen-free options and continuously change menus based on student preferences. They also work with cultural groups to showcase their cuisine. Andy leads by example and has 35 years of leadership experience. He enjoys the energy of working at universities and loves cooking for people. His daily routine involves checking in with staff, handling administrative tasks, and ensuring meals are prepared well. My name is Andy Chaplin. I am the general manager. I oversee all dining operations on the campus. The students, making sure their day is good. You never know, you know, hey, what are we serving today? Never know when somebody's having a bad day and good food helps them. That's the piece I love about the job is the students and working with people. Probably any of the chicken curries that they make. Those brings back memories of growing up when as a family we would get together and as a family cook. And so we'd all pick a curry and make a curry. And so when I have curry, it reminds me when we get together as a family and just cook. I have a little bit. I mean, I'm responsible for everything, but I trust my executive chef to come up with the menus and what we're doing. But when we talk about things, we have meetings every week that we talk about things, but they bring the ideas. I give them feedback. We talk through things, when things are going to work, how they're going to work, what we're doing from time to time, what they think, what we can do better. I met with student government a few times to talk about some of the issues that have come up or some of the things that are really good as well. But we're going to be next year working on a better way to get feedback, not just through a survey, but through actual communication, like sitting down with a group and saying, okay, tell me what people get fed. And so when it comes to allergens, we have our simple servings and simple sprout station, which has the top nine allergens taken out of everything we do in that dish. Everything is cooked separately. Everything's stored separately. Has its own oven, has its own area that it's prepared in. So there's not a lot of cross-contact or cross-contamination, if any. When it comes to variety, I look at it as we try to try and change menus as much as we can. If something's not good and nobody eats it, we take it off the menu and put something else on. I would say I lead by example. I try to. I set a vision. I set a goal and say, okay, here's what I think we should be doing. And let's work together to how we can create that. And so then we have meetings and we talk to everybody and I'm leading them and giving them feedback on where we're at. And if I give them feedback on good I give them feedback on good and I give them feedback on bad so that they know it can get better. My leadership, 35 years. So I've been with FedExO for 26. My last account was at Christian University in Boise. I was there for 18 years. I love working at universities because of the energy. There's always, and it's always sad when all the students leave at summer because it's so quiet around here. It's so much better when there's students and stuff's going on and there's just a different energy. And I love cooking and I love having people over and cooking for them and brisket, ribs, chicken, all that kind of stuff. So good. It takes a while, but it's good when it comes out. You look at trends, look at what we're hearing from students and what we think might work. If it doesn't work, we change it. Like this last year, we totally changed Gwen. And we listened to people, listening to feedback. We added more vegetarian, more vegan options at each station. And then created menus that we felt would be more exciting, customizable. So in other words, instead of walking up to a station and just getting what they have, you could pick and choose and say, I want this on it and I want this on it. Taking it and making a sandwich bar on the grill area once a week where people can make a sandwich and it's a nice sub-sandwich or something like that. Trending menus, trying new things, problems and then just making sure that all our guests are taken care of. Well, we've tried this year and last year to work with cultural groups on campus and showcase them and then do the food of their culture. And we usually do that with their, they give us some recipes and we talk through some things. But my executive chef is pretty good. And so he knows the cultural things and some things. And so that's how we do that. We try to do that, get them involved in the whole planning process. And if we have questions we can ask, right? Or it's like, hey, they've got this ingredient that comes from this place, we can't find it. So what would be a substitute to keep it as authentic as possible? Do the same thing with our cooks and our chefs is once in a while we'll do a showcase from what, like we've done it where they had a dish from their childhood, what was their favorite dish and so they would create it and do that and be out there cooking it. And plus we've also had, this year, had two chefs from different countries from Sodexo come in. We had one in the fall from Colombia and we had one at the end of winter quarter from the Netherlands. And so they come in for two days and they cook and they showcase their food out here in Gwinn. Depending on the day, I will leave my house and drive here and depending on the day it takes me anywhere from 35 minutes to an hour and 10 minutes to get here. Then I'll walk in and I'll walk into all the units and I'll show them the food and I'll show them the food. And I will check in and say hi to everybody. Then probably go drop off my backpack in my office and check emails and then lunchtime I will come down and check on things in Gwinn and check on things and then I go back to my office and do more work and then I get out of my office and I go check on things again. Around me and then dinner comes and I make sure that we're good for dinner and chef's good and then I'll leave and go home.