Hungry students flock to the DIS website each day to view the lunch menu, but they gloss over another feature on the page: the feedback form. Available on the Cafeteria page, the feedback form ensures that meals meet the expectations of students and parents, and allows stakeholders to input suggestions.
The cafeteria staff and Mr. Choo, DIS business manager, launched the feedback form to allow students and parents to better communicate their preferences. “Students, faculty or even parents can fill out the form after they have eaten the food.” After DIS community members fill out the form, Mr. Choo delivers it to the cafeteria staff.
This helps mitigate disparities between the students and chefs. “Food really depends on personal preferences. So it is important for the cafeteria staff to hear from their clients what dishes are liked and what dishes aren’t liked. That way, they can provide more of the dishes that people like, and less of what is disliked,” Mr. Choo said.
In previous years, parents’ opinions submitted through the form led to changes in meals. “Students tend not to eat vegetables and kimchi. From this feedback, the cafeteria staff has included a lot of vegetables in very small pieces. They chop all of the vegetables into their food so the elementary students do not even realize that they are eating vegetables,” Mr. Choo said.
J&J Catering, the new food service company, also took feedback from the form into account. “Mr. Choo told us, so we added oatmeal to the breakfast menu. When people give us opinions, we try our best to implement those changes. For oatmeal, we were able to receive it via delivery, so that was implemented right away,” cafeteria manager Yeonjeong Kim said.
The cafeteria staff welcome suggestions. Kim said, “There was this elementary schooler who was crying while getting her food. So I asked her, ‘Why are you crying?’ She said that since our company changed, there hasn’t been much food that suits her taste. She said she really wanted pork rice soup (돼지국밥). So today, after we served it, I asked her how it was, and she said, ‘It was really delicious.’”
Mr. Choo and the staff look forward to more opinions submitted through the feedback form. “It’s mostly used by the parents. When students fill it out, their answers are too short and don’t really give specific information to the cafeteria staff,” Choo said. “If students fill out the form with more specific answers, it will help a lot. The more feedback we receive, the better the cafeteria can provide food that our students enjoy.”
