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Cafeteria; Bad Management Hits Students In The Guts

By Gordon Blue

The mob who run the catering operation at Victoria University is the International Telegraph and Telephone Company (I.T.T.). This company specialises in promoting insurrection in Chile; exploiting black labour in South Africa, Rhodesia, Angola and Mozambique; and generally bolstering reactionary governments all over the Third World. As a sideline they helped ensure Nixon's re-election last year. A brief description of the company's operations would include bombs for Vietnam, bread, motels, telephones, and V.U.W. students' food under the name of Nationwide Food Services. Nationwide is a subsidiary of I.T.T.'s Australian subsidiary, Thomas Nationwide Transport.

It would appear that these rogues are not very efficient at managing other people's economies; witness the $17,000 lost last year while students paid to lose it and ate shit into the bargain. Nationwide are on a management contract, they don't lose their own money and they are hopelessly inefficient. The food provided is enough to turn a soul to wheatgerm and yoghurt.

This year food prices in the Cafe have risen 20%, tables are not cleared and the swill goes on. The reasons given for the price rise are (1) an increase in food prices of 12% and (2) Equal Pay for women. In fact it is bad buying, bad management and bad cooking which does it. An operation selling food at low prices depends on low wastage and low labour content. On a traditional basis the retail cost of a meal is divided into 3 parts: one-third cost of raw materials, one-third cost of labour and other overheads and one-third profit.

Since the profit question does not and should not arise in the cafeteria Nationwide have only food costs and overheads to pass on to students. Their labour content is high, but considering the size of the operation the other overheads should be low as there are no rates or rent.

Assuming that the food cost per portion of two pieces of fried fish, two scoops of potatoes and one scoop of soggy peas is 15 cents (which is stretching it), where is the rationale for charging 50 cents and then losing on it? Fish should be supplied for no more than 30 cents per filletted pound, if bought wisely. Certainly no one ever got half a pound of fish when they ordered such a meal, so where are the costs? Lamb is about 37 cents per bonned pound. Assuming that Nationwide did serve such a dish as lamb casserole they should be able to do so for a cost of 40 cents.

Compare the cafeteria here with that provided on the waterfront. It is also a subsidised venture but suffers from incredible irregularity of custom because of the unpredictable nature of shipping and therefore work. The cafeteria on the wharf has very high labour overheads since they have 5 or 6 subsidiary outlets that are poorly patronised. However a wharfie can get a three course hot meal, soup, meat, 3 vegetables and potatoes, tea, and bread and butter for 63 cents. The meat dish will range from steak and kidney to chicken. For a lunch of 2 fillets of fish, a sausage and potatoes they pay 30 cents. Most importantly the servings are massive. Yet the subsidy on the wharfies' cafeteria is no greater than the amount students effectively subsidise their own cafe by paying for the Union Building and for the overheads of the catering operation. This comparison shows that food costs for commercial caterers are not as high as some people would have students believe.

There is no need to do a restaurant critic's job on the food. It is just suffice to say it is appalling. Why can they not serve real soup? It costs almost nothing to make from remnants of other dishes — bones etc. Maggi Soup is expensive and horrid. Why can't they buy fresh vegetables? Why can't they sell bread, cheese and cold meats instead of those ghastly dry rolls of bread that taste of little else than Eta Mayonnaise. Sandwiches and bread rolls are as expensive as they are down town. Coffee or tea is twice the price charged in many other factory or commercial cafeterias (they cost 4 cents on the wharf).

I was not aware that the Victoria University Students Association was so important to I.T.T. that they should seek to destroy its finances. But for "experienced caterers like Nationwide to lose $17,000 in one year suggests more than just inefficiency.