Program Overview: Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., collaborated with Meatless Monday to bring more plant-based meal options to its dining hall. The college held a series of special events were held to raise awareness about plant-based eating and offer new meat-free menu options.
Objective: Use innovative promotions and events to expose students to delicious meat-free meals and teach them about the benefits of plant-based eating. Demonstrate to students how they can eat plant-based foods for any meal of the day.
Process: Host food-focused events, like National Oatmeal Day and a plant-based cookout, in the campus dining hall to get students excited about Meatless Monday and meat-free eating.
Outcome: The events were a huge success, with the Hendrix College foodservice team receiving a national award for their ingenuity and commitment to serving healthy, sustainable, and nutritious meals.
Hendrix College already had an award-winning dining hall that offered daily vegan and vegetarian food choices. But, the college wanted to provide more than a few meat-free meal options during lunch and dinner.
To do this, it set out to tackle the first meal of the day: breakfast. Many typical breakfast items are not plant-based, so Cindy Mosley, associate director and dietitian of dining services, got creative. For National Oatmeal Day, she introduced the first-ever Meatless Monday oatmeal bar, which included a buffet-style selection of oatmeal additions, like fresh and dried fruit, nuts, chocolate chips, and other delicious toppings.
“The focus has been on lunch and dinner options – never for breakfast,” Mosley said in an interview with Meatless Monday. “I felt it was time to encourage some additional choices and find ways to encourage students to make whole-grain choices. The observance of National Oatmeal Day was the perfect time to stage it.”
Given the success of the National Oatmeal Day event, Hendrix College wanted to introduce even more plant-based options. The foodservice team worked with Meatless Monday and Gardein, a prominent meat-free food brand, to create a “Meatless Monday Gardein Party,” where the dining hall offered new dishes using Gardein’s plant-based burgers, meatballs, and crumbles.
The event was such a massive success that it was included in Hendrix College’s submission to the Loyal E. Horton Dining Awards, which rates a college’s dining facility based on its menu, presentation, marketing, nutrition and wellness, and sustainability. At the National Association of College & University Food Services (NACUFS) National Conference, Hendrix College and the “Gardein Party” promotion were awarded second place in the category of “Residential Dining Facility.”
