Food Price Increases Hit HUDS Hard

The drastic hike in international food prices has hit Harvard dining halls—and it's taken your bacon bits.

Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) is “in a period of change due to the dramatic increase in the cost of food over the last few months,” Crista Martin, a HUDS spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed statement, in response to a reporter’s questions about the disappearance of certain food items from HUDS’ daily menu.

Food prices have increased 75 percent since 2005, according to a recent article in The Economist.

Dining services has been “tweaking all over the place,” Martin said, and HUDS is taking a look at the menu to ensure that “we’re doing the right things with the right prices, with the cost of food being what it is.”

“We juggle offerings accordingly,” Martin said. She would not identify specific items that have fallen off the menu. But students have begun to notice.

Elizabeth B. David ’08 said the dining halls have not been serving tuna as frequently as two years ago, and Steven A. McDonald ’08 said he noticed that the red pepper hummus has been increasingly replaced by plain hummus.

According to Martin, prices began to change significantly over the course of the fall. For example, the price of milk has gone up approximately 40 percent since the beginning of the school year, Martin said.

Not all the changes, however, are due to price increases.

“We are currently in the winter cycle, which features different menu items than fall or spring based on tastes and seasonal product availability,” Martin said in the statement.

For at least one student, the prevalence of pasta has become a sign of the times.

“The last couple of days, they’ve been serving pasta not only at the pasta place, but also in the main dishes section,” said visiting student Michael M. Moedl, who lives in Quincy House. He added that the dining halls serve “only chicken,” speculating that it is a cheaper meat.

According to HUDS, some problems are bigger than Harvard.

“Anyone, anywhere worldwide,” Martin said, “is experiencing this.”

—Staff Writer Esther I. Yi can be reached at estheryi@fas.harvard.edu.