Successful campus-dining programs depend on many behind-the-kitchen players. Take Marvin Rodriguez, for instance, the CFO of Epicurean Group, a man who approaches his numbers-oriented position with an unexpected mindset. “I made my way through college working in food service. After graduation, I started working in engineering, my field of study, but soon realized I didn’t have much passion for the job. Food service has an amazing affinity to draw people in. It’s a lot of fun! If you love people as I do, go for a career in hospitality and food service.”

We talked with Marvin about what is needed to successfully operate and fund a dining program in today’s fast-paced, technology-driven world.

Q: From your perch as CFO, what are the PROs and CONs for companies considering hiring a food service company or handling their dining needs in-house instead?

A: The big thing is food cost. Epicurean Group supplies our customers a lower cost of goods than they can get on their own. If you run your program independently, you might easily pay 20% more for food alone. Next, and very importantly, is the reduction of employee turnover costs. Turnover means losses in terms of training, departure costs, disruption to productivity, and expenses for recruiting and hiring new people. Also, single operations have fewer professional opportunities to offer employees. Employees are looking to grow their careers, something multi-unit companies can provide. When personnel finds out the road to advancement is a dead-end, many just leave.

Workers’ compensation is also a very important part of the puzzle. Workers’ comp rates or premiums are calculated according to the type of work employees perform and the overall Experience Mod for the entire group. Manual jobs carry higher rates than white-collar jobs. By outsourcing food services, Universities, Colleges, and Private Preparatory lower the cost of one of the higher rate classes – food service employees. Due to higher accident frequency, food service pushes the Experience MOD up. Then workers’ comp rate goes up for the entire institution, something companies forget to factor in when undertaking new programs. At Epicurean Group, we are able to lower the cost of Workers’ Comp with our specialized safety program focused exclusively on food service employees.

Faster revenue growth and employee engagement also come into play. At Epicurean Group, we provide constant employee engagement with ample opportunities for Chefs and Managers to network and exchange new ideas. They have opportunities to participate in formal training programs such as Building Culinary Leaders and Do-It-Be-A-Star, to name a few; they come together monthly and quarterly for Bang the Pot and once a year for the Epic Iron Chef Competition. We keep them engaged, bouncing ideas off each other about what worked in their different kitchens. There is power in numbers! In a single-unit operation, the Chefs don’t have the opportunity to meet up and exchange best practices between establishments. With the added support of multi-unit marketing and IT, growth and innovations come even faster.

Q: How to choose the right fit? When is it financially smart to stay with an in-house vs. contracted-out service?

I am a firm believer that most educational institutions are better off outsourcing food services and focusing on their core business of education. There is a lot of pressure on institutions to achieve full enrollment year over year. To meet their enrollment and retention goals, all of their services must be running at optimum 24/7. It is a lot easier to achieve their overall goals when efforts are focused on core competencies, leaving auxiliary services to professional companies with the expertise to deliver such services. When everyone is focused on their core competencies and brings those to collaborate with others, no doubt that perpetual success follows!

Q: What are the biggest financial difficulties of campus dining programs?

Labor supply is at the very top – finding and keeping good culinarians. The labor market has shrunk during the pandemic. The lower supply has pushed rates up, resulting in higher expenses to run operations. Additionally, and very important in today’s world, is controlling with the fast pace of inflation. We are mitigating the cost increase by ensuring our Chefs and operators use all available programs and tools under our menu engineering programs, which are built around seasonality, reorganizing job functions, when possible, waste reduction, programs such as meat butchering, sausage making, and inhouse baking; food trends, technology delivery options, strategic pricing, and working closely with our partners including distributors, farmers, and artisan bakeries. According to macro projections, inflation is here to stay for a while, so our best solution is to constantly educate and train our teams.

I also want to mention that Universities, Colleges, and Private Preparatory have become a full experience. There is a high level of competition to be the best at everything, the best at athletics, the best at academics, and even the best at food service. This is a very critical part. Our customer base is increasingly educated about where their food comes from and how it is made. They ask us! Today’s food service industry has to be ready to respond with good answers to these common requests.

The focus of any institute of learning is to educate their students. If the schools are trying to do their core competence and we are trying to do ours, both of us can ride through challenging periods like we are in now more easily because they are doing what they do best, and we are doing what we do best.

Q: This quote is on your website; please tell me more: “Our clients have a very clear choice in the market today—to hire a global behemoth and be just another number in a big machine or to engage with a company like Epicurean Group. We might be small, but we have a big bite!”

Mid-size is an asset – we are nimble. We can customize. Large is not always best. With our size, during the epidemic, we could make adjustments faster. We were able to customize at whatever level our clients wanted and be ready when they chose to come back. You can innovate so much faster as a smaller company.

Q: Talk some about Covid. How has Epicurean Group weathered the storm?

Because we can be nimble, we had innovations that came to market so much faster than our competition. Students are used to doing everything online, and with Covid, we leveraged technology to help get them what they wanted. Technology extended the platform to deliver meals in a safe and convenient way during the pandemic. Additionally, technology gave food service operators the tools to meet students’ expectations on campus as it relates to online food ordering platforms such as DoorDash, and UberEats.

Q: Finally, do you have any advice for people getting into the field of finance and food?

A: You gotta love to serve! I always start with the customer in mind. If you focus your efforts on quality and good service, the financial results will follow. Lead with quality. Success will follow.