DAY 27: BARILLA IN AMES, IOWA
Monday, July 16, 2012
University of Northern Iowa
Today,
my internship director and I toured the Barilla plant, the Italian Food Company
in Ames, Iowa. This is an international
pasta and bakery distributor. Barilla
holds fifty percent of the pasta market share in the United States. Barilla originated in Parma, Italy and was
founded by Pietro Barilla. Now, the
fourth generation Barilla family runs Barilla.
Ames, Iowa is one of the two production plants in the United States (the
other is in Avon, New York). Iowa
creates a central location for the United States, and the plant is located on
the Union Pacific railway system creating a low cost economical distributor
throughout the United States.
Wow, the
plant was amazing. We saw how pasta is
made from a wheat plant to the noodles in a box. There were so many machines. Barilla pasta ensures the best quality
product to its customers. Safety and
sanitation are the major concerns at Barilla.
We wore coats, hairnets, earplugs, closed toe shoes, safety glasses, and
no jewelry. We all looked pretty funny
in our hair nets.
I got to
meet another NACUFS intern. She is
interning at Iowa State University in Ames, IA.
It was fun to converse what we were doing in our internships. I think that we are going to see each other
again, because I am visiting ISU on Tuesday, July 24.
Other
pasta companies do not remove the bran of the semolina making it tough, sticky,
and discolored, whereas Barilla removes the bran giving the noodle a uniform
color and better quality noodle.
It was
an interesting day in Ames. I have never
been to a food manufacturing plant. I
could not believe the few number of employees it took to run an operation such
as this one. No one was near the mill
only when we got to the park where the product was starting to look like pasta
did I ever see a worker. It’s amazing
what technology can do.
I never
saw myself working for a food company, but it would be interesting creating
healthier options for companies such as Barilla.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
University of Northern Iowa
Today I
met with my internship director who happens to be a dietitian, so it is right
up my alley. We discussed her position
at UNI. Then I worked on creating QR
codes for the soups at UNI while she was attending a meeting. Next, we attended a purchasing meeting with
Tyson, world producer of chicken, pork, and beef as well as prepared appetizers
and snack items. Lastly, we attended a
meeting with a local daycare director.
UNI
created a dietitian position in 1999, and now, the position is combined with
the purchasing manager position. She
counsels students with their diets 3-4 hours per week. For example, if a person has a food allergy
and would like some counseling she is the one to go to. If it is an ongoing situation such as an
eating disorder or weight loss counseling, then she offers follow ups for the
students. In addition, she works with
the doctors in the wellness center especially with students who have
diabetes.
Next, we
discussed the menus at each of the dining locations. There are menu guidelines that should be
followed when planning a menu for an operation.
For example, there needs to be 12 types of cereals placed out each breakfast. Each manager can create their own menus;
however, he or she must stick to the guidelines. Typically, foodservices create menus on some
rotation (eg. 23-day cycle). If there is
an issue with one of the days, then the manager can change what he or she is
serving to match the guidelines.
FoodPro
is a software application that can perform numerous functions for your
foodservice operation. From a nutrition
standpoint, FoodPro can pull nutritional information from Food Processor, a
nutrition analysis system and upload the information onto the internet for easy
access to the customers. We viewed the
food labels from the program; it shows the macronutrients, ingredients,
calories, allergies, etc.
As a
dietitian in a school setting, it is important to educate the audience about
nutrition. She creates programs and
nutrition displays about the vast information about nutrition. For example, she created a program that shows
students how to eat healthy in the dining halls. In addition, the nutrition information that a
person can receive from school during the month of March explodes since it is
National Nutrition Month.
My
director had a confidential meeting to go to, so I worked on my QR codes while
she was gone. I cannot believe that I
have finished my project. I hope it all
goes well, and people utilize the codes.
Hopefully, we receive a nice response on Facebook that people like the
codes, and UNI can create more codes for each venue.
Afterwards,
we went to a purchasing meeting with Tyson.
Tyson wants their products at UNI, but it’s a buyers power market. Tyson described its new products and tried to
persuade us to use their products instead of the ones UNI was currently
using. UNI uses made from scratch items,
which Tyson is not a competitor in.
However, UNI was interested in spicy chicken patties and thin crust
pizzas.
Next, we
went to a meeting with a local daycare.
The daycare does not have the equipment or room for mass food production
for their business, but UNI does. Each
day, UNI will deliver food for the daycare for a certain rate. UNI has to ensure proper temperatures when
transporting the food. In addition, the
daycare asked UNI if they could do the daycare’s dishes from the meals.
DAY 29: PURCHASING MODULE…WAIT NVM PROJECT DAY!
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
University of Northern Iowa
Today, I
was supposed to meet with my internship director to finish the nutrition module
and start on the purchasing module at 10am; however, something came up so I had
to reschedule.
After
breakfast, I worked with Deb. We printed
advertisements for my special event, and I hung them around the dining
center. Yesterday, we sent a mass e-mail
to the DOR. We should get a great turn
out.
Afterwards,
I went to see my internship director. We
discussed my resume for 45 minutes, and then she had to leave. I am trying to further my experiences by
applying for a food service worker/dietary aide in a hospital. It is important to work in a diet office with
my major, because it could make or break my chances of being accepted into an
internship.
For the
rest of the day, I worked on my special event, which is only one week
away! I am starting to feel the
nerves! I am trying to get myself
organized to see what the next step is.
I know I need to create set-up notes for the decorations and venues to
see what kind of staffing I need. In
addition, I have to finish Olympic javelin throw games.
I am
regretting the Olympic balloon idea.
Blowing up 120 balloons seems like it is going to take some time. Thank goodness, I bought a balloon air pump!
My order
came in from Oriental Trading and Party City.
I have all my decorations, I just need to make some minor changes and
add some descriptions, and I should be done with them. To do list are my thing. I have a rough week/weekend ahead of me with
this project, but I am still in good shape.
I am so glad that I started on this last month!
DAY 30: UNIVERSITY OF IOWA TOUR AND LOCAL FARMERS’ MARKET
Thursday, July 19, 2012
University of Northern Iowa
Today,
the retail manager and I drove to University of Iowa in Iowa City and met up
with the intern from Iowa State. We
toured the enormous campus. Indeed, it
makes UNI look small. Comparing it to my
campus is like comparing an airplane to an ant.
We
toured their three C-stores on campus in Burge, Hillcrest, and Mayflower. Most of them were small, but they used their
space well. The stores had hot lines of
food in addition to the convenience items.
One location had a Papa Murphy’s pizza concept. A food item that I saw in their convenience
stores really surprised me—sushi. Bob
said that they sushi sells extremely well during the school year. In addition, it was Coca-Cola campus;
however, at some locations they sell PepsiCo products and Coke. Students can use their Hawkeye prepaid
dollars, which is similar to a debit card, cash, credit cards, or charge to
their student accounts to purchase items at the store.
In
addition, we looked at some of their Campus Cafés located in some of the
academic buildings. It was a Grab and Go
type of dining. It reminded me of eating
at a food court in a mall. They were
self-operated. A person could choose
items from the Wok, sub sandwiches, homemade meals, grilled burgers, pizza, or
anything you would expect in a food court that was not franchised.
Next, we
toured their Campus Recreation and Wellness Center. It was the gym of all gyms with 50-meter size
pool, indoor track, huge rock climbing wall, free weights, cable weights, air
weights, aerobic training machines, basketball courts, etc. It was unbelievable. Students get free access to the
facility. Faculty and staff receive a
discounted rate of $25 per month. Alumni
and non-affiliated community members pay $48 a month. That gym is totally worth every penny if you
would utilize it. The actual reason why
we toured the CRWC was there is a smoothie concept located inside the gym. They franchised the brand Tropical Smoothie
Café, again it was a small area, but it did well with business. Honestly, I do not think that it matter that
it was branded. To me a smoothie is a
smoothie, because no one in Iowa has ever heard of Tropical Smoothie before.
Afterwards
we met with a dining manager and toured the two residential dining halls on
campus: Burge Market Place and Hillcrest Market Place. Both of these facilities had similar venues
that served breakfast, lunch, and dinner anywhere from continental breakfast to
Asian cuisine. Students can use their
meal plans, Hawkeye prepaid dollars, etc.
Most of the venues are buffet style others are cafeteria style. They even have a waffle maker that brands
hawk heads into your waffles. The thing
that surprised me was they are just starting a CBORD system. I could not imagine doing all that work
manually for all those years. In
addition, they had tubes/holes where silverware and trash went after you were
done eating near the assembly line. It
saves the time of the dish room workers to clear those items before prewashing
them.
The last
thing we looked at was the football banquet room. The football team has their own room where
they serve awesome meals before games.
They can have steak and blueberry pie.
It’s for football players only, but I guess they pay to have it.
We
headed back to Cedar Falls and stopped by a local Farmers’ Market. I think the prices were a little high, but we
have not had rain in over a month. They
were selling sunflowers that were so pretty: $0.75/3 flowers. In addition, they had a vegetable that I had
never heard of called Kohlrabi. It is a
greenish-white turnip like vegetable from the brassica family. It can be eaten raw or cooked.
DAY 31: PROJECT DAY FOR MY SPECIAL EVENT
Friday, July 20, 2012
University of Northern Iowa
Six days
until my event! I have my weekend all
planned ahead of me. It’s all about the
decorations, set up notes, and staffing from here on out.
I
focused on my decorations set up notes today.
It is hard to put into words how I want the venues and games set up, so
I am sure that day will be a little crazy.
Hopefully, these notes will make them a little less crazy. Basically, this is helping me to determine
the staffing for the day. I figured with
all the venues opened, the dishwashers, greeters, dining room staff, and extra
people for games, it will take about 30 students not including the full time
cooks, foodservice supervisors, and managers to host the event.
During
the school year, Rialto serves anywhere from 1300-2000 customers per meal;
however, they do not all come at once.
This is a football camp of 600 kids; they practice together, they live
together, so of course, they eat together.
I am
planning on being at Rialto around 7am to begin setting up for my event. I chose to come in a little bit later, since
the football team will be there for breakfast.
From 7am until 8am, I will be
working alone hanging signs throughout the dining hall and gathering
decorations for each of the venues. At
8am, three other students will be joining me to actually decorate the venues
according to their countries and help move chairs for the games. I am not so much worried about the preservice
of the meal, it is during the meal that is scaring me.
Staffing
is very confusing, because not only are you staffing for that particular day,
you are having staff prepare for other days in the dining hall. I think after time it becomes second nature,
but it was mind boggling determining how long it would take someone to decorate
one venue, and what is the best strategy.
Lastly,
I made the random signs for around the dining hall. I am having four games, so I created those
titles, which had fun facts about Olympic records. Then I created a day-of-advertisement for the
event. Afterwards, I created
spreadsheets to keep track of the players and their points from my games.
On paper
my ideas look awesome; hopefully, it all turns out like it does on the
paper. If not, at least it will be a
learning experience for me.
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