A survey conducted by Nutrislice, a food-service digital engagement and solution provider, is reinforcing the importance of mobile dining solutions in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The survey was circulated to some 800 college and university students across the US, and sought to clarify student expectations around campus dining amid a proposed return this fall.

Georgia Southern University has been providing mobile ordering to its students since 2015 and has seen nothing but strong usage and order volumes year on year. But as the university’s contract with its mobile ordering provider was approaching renewal in June of 2019, the university began weighing its options. Here’s how the university chose Transact Mobile Ordering.

Despite a vast majority of students returning to their homes for the remainder of the academic calendar, many universities are still serving a small number of students for whom traveling home isn’t an option. Vanderbilt University is one such campus, and Vandy Campus Dining has established a care package service for its remaining on-campus residents to help them during the pandemic shutdown.

In response to the campus shutdowns and students moving to either their homes or off campus, Grubhub has instituted measures to help universities adapt to the new landscape. The company is enabling students to use their campus funds at Grubhub restaurants across the country along with a handful of other initiatives designed to provide dining alternatives during campus closures.

In an effort to help its surrounding community, staff members from the University of Kentucky dining services have partnered with local organizations to prepare meals for those in need. UK Dining chefs have provided some 200-300 meals per day to people in need over the last two weeks.

Transact is hosting a free webinar detailing ways that universities can leverage Transact Mobile Ordering to continue to serve students that have remained on their campuses during the coronavirus pandemic. The webinar will draw experiences from a panel of university leaders that are currently using mobile ordering to serve students and faculty.

With the COVID-19 virus driving students back to their homes for remote learning, there are resources left on campus that are no longer being utilized. Recognizing this, the University of Virginia’s dining services department has decided to repurpose perishable food on campus at risk of going unused by donating it to neighboring food banks and charities.

University dining programs are having to shift operations to meet the needs of students left on or near campus, while still meeting requirements around the management of COVID-19. In an effort to provide guidance and information to universities serving students during this time, CBORD has scheduled a free webinar discussing ideas and best practices to manage dining operations during the COVID-19 crisis.

One of the most common campus implementations for biometric technology is in the dining hall, where quickly sending large numbers of students through a turnstile is vital. One university that seems particularly eager to deploy biometrics in this manner is Dartmouth University, where campus dining personnel are considering a future rollout.

The University of Montana is bringing food trucks back to campus dining fold after a long hiatus. It’s been almost two years since the University of Montana’s own food truck suspended its regular service, but following requests from students three outside food truck concepts will roll onto campus this week.