Eateries on campus are increasingly accommodating healthier food requests to include vegetarian and vegan varieties.

The University Corporation, currently in charge of overseeing all of the food operations on campus, aims to provide convenient, healthy and reasonably-priced meals for students, faculty and staff, according to Betsy Corrigan, associate director of campus dining.

“What makes us unique is that we do three services of our different meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner,” said Julie Pullen, residential dining general manager. “All of that contains scratch-made food for our buffet line.”

Popular restaurants at CSUN include the Marketplace, Arbor Grill, Orange Grove Bistro, Subway and Geronimo’s, the university’s residential buffet-style restaurant.

With the exclusion of Subway, these restaurants make most of their menu items from scratch in their own kitchens. A variety of meals are also prepared to order including salads, pastas and sandwiches. Subway prepares most of its produce as well as baking breads on-site, said Tim Killops, associate director of facilities.

“Subway is always looking for ways to stay ahead of the market in terms of healthy options,” Killops said. “They are trying to stay on the leading edge in terms of what people are looking for in healthy options.”

According to Mike Lennon, associate director of retail operations, CSUN uses two vendors, US Food Service and Nature’s Produce, to provide most of the food served. Both deliver fresh produce, breads and meats to locations on campus daily.

“They have many choices to choose from and when we need new items they’ll go out and source them,” Lennon said.

Student demand for healthier food is heard in several ways. The University Corporation compiles focus groups, provides surveys and comment cards, and has a secret shopper program to better assist them with getting feedback on their food. Specials also appear on menus can, with extensive feedback, become permanent items.

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