You can always expect some changes with a new semester, and one of those changes happened to be Chartwells increasing their prices on various items. At first glance this would be cause for criticism, but there were good reasons behind the price increase.
“Not all prices have gone up,” Toby Bushee, Director of Commercial Services, said. So Chartwells only made changes where they felt it was necessary.  Chartwells needed to change the prices because the price of certain foods changed and they wanted to provide us with better quality food.
“There was only a price increase on one item (chicken wings), and that was due to the increase cost of chicken. We did change the size of the taco from a four-inch tortilla with one ounce of meat to a six-inch tortilla with two-and-a-half ounces of meat and burritos to larger sizes, and the change in cost reflects the larger size item ($1.25 to $1.99-$2.39). We changed our fresh fruit to locally-grown, organic fruit, and the cost rose $.20 each,” Bushee said.
When asked, students were very critical about the price increase.
“It’s pretty unfair, we have a lot of students on campus who don’t have money already,” Anthony Constancio (sophomore, Chemistry) said.
When it comes to chicken it is almost delusional to not expect an increase when the price of chicken went up. As for the tacos and burritos, a little bump in the price should be worth a bigger portion of these items. Finally, we should always support anything that can be purchased locally. The result of Chartwells purchasing local fruit is us students supporting a local business.
To college students any price increase is going to be annoying. These days no one likes to pay more; money comes at a premium. With all the expenses we already have, we like to penny pinch and save as much as possible. The last thing college students want is their school raising prices on food.
But we need to realize these changes were made out of necessity and the intentions of providing us with the best. Also it’s not a huge increase. The difference is not going to affect our wallets in a big way. Chartwells made decisions based on what they felt was best for the students, and I feel the right decisions were made.
Chartwells is not trying to come up with ways to take money from us.
“We are continuing to work hard to provide the very best at the very best price for our students, staff and faculty,” Bushee said.
Chartwells continues to provide students with quality food at reasonable prices, and there is nothing else that can be asked of them.