Products sold at Emporium and Timeout seem like a good deal: name brands right on campus, a quick snack on your way to class, somewhere to unload leftover meal plan points. But with prices represented in points, it can be easy to forget how much those products are actually costing students.
Depending on which meal plan a student has, the majority of items offered at these on campus convenience stores are marked up from 300 to 500 percent from the products real value.
Missouri Students Association senator and Maneater staff member Steven Dickherber converted point values to dollars and found this discrepancy between product value and price.
With fellow MSA senator and Maneater staff member Zach Toombs, Dickherber found that a bag a granola and a 24-pack of water are offered at more than $15, and a 24-case of Gatorade costs $72 for a student with a 350-point meal plan.
“We’re not looking for anything in particular,” Toombs said. “We’re hoping to, we’re reviewing the information objectively and just hoping to sort of further the cause of transparency at the university as far as finances go.”
Campus Dining Services Director Julaine Kiehn said she agrees Emporium and Timeout do not offer desirable prices on items CDS does not manufacture.
“Those convenience items aren’t a good value,” she said. “We have to offer them though because our customers want them, as I understand it.”
Kiehn said the products with the best value are the ones CDS makes itself.
“A sandwich that we can sell for .5 or .7 of a meal, that’s a pretty hefty sandwich,” she said. “We provide good values on that because we can make it.”
[According to a previous Maneater article](https://www.themaneater.com/stories/2011/10/4/emporium-cafe-opens/) on Emporium’s opening, students did voice a need for a quick way to grab breakfast.
Kiehn said CDS cannot buy items in bulk like grocery stores do because of a lack of space. By buying smaller numbers of items, the individual price of the item goes up.
“(Pricing) is all based on how much that product costs us,” Kiehn said.
CDS buys most of these products from U.S. Foods, a national foodservice distributor. Kiehn said regardless of which large distributing company CDS buys from, the price would be about the same.
Toombs said he is trying to acquire a copy of CDS’ contract with the distributor.
CDS’ budget is made in November, before the next year’s freshman class size is determined. The past few years, enrollment has been higher than expected.
“That’s a good problem to have, but in the mean time we’ve set our rates based on a lower number of students,” Kiehn said. “The fixed costs for those meals are spread among all those students.”
With more students than planned paying fixed costs, CDS is making more money than expected. That money goes to its reserves, which fund equipment purchases, facility renovations, program changes and other projects. Last fiscal year, though, CDS had the means to transfer out about $5 million to Student Affairs, which takes a portion of the money earned by several MU facilities.
Student Affairs Vice Chancellor Cathy Scroggs said CDS’s contributions have helped fund the Virginia Avenue Housing project, the MU Student Center project and the Student Recreation Complex project.
“All the funds are used for projects in ‘student’ facilities,” Scroggs said in an email.
While the money students spend at Emporium and Timeout is staying on campus, Toombs and Dickherber don’t think that justifies their inflated prices.
The two plan to ask CDS to begin posting the cost of goods in dollar amounts alongside an item’s point value.
“We’re certainly doing this for transparency’s sake,” Toombs said. “But we’re also doing this to highlight the fact that students are getting a bad deal on these takeout prices, and that’s something Julaine Kiehn agrees with us on.”
