Bon Appetit hires Penn Dining mgrs.

The company has hired seven of the 11 Dining employees who applied for jobs under the new management structure. At least seven of the 20 Dining Services employees whose positions were eliminated during last month's outsourcing of Dining to Bon Appetit Management Co. have been offered positions within the new management structure -- and Bon Appetit officials are still reviewing several applications, the company's Chief Executive Officer Fedele Bauccio said yesterday. The 20 Dining officials left unemployed by the outsourcing -- which officially starts July 1 -- had the opportunity to apply to Bon Appetit for positions similar to their current jobs. But surprisingly, only 11 of the 20 displaced Dining employees applied for new positions with Bon Appetit, Bauccio said. "We thought we would have more people apply," Bauccio said. According to Associate Vice President for Campus Services Larry Moneta, "the important factor is that most of the people who applied were offered positions." Although 20 managers had their jobs eliminated, other Dining employees -- in areas such as food preparation and presentation -- will continue to be employed by the University. Only three dining services managers -- Managing Director of Campus Dining Peg Lacey, her executive assistant Pam Lampitt and Meal Contract Coordinator Adam Sherr -- were assured of keeping their jobs. Officials have said the decision was prompted solely by a desire to improve the quality of food, not to cut costs. After the final hiring of Dining employees has been completed, Bon Appetit will then search from within its own company -- as well as outside the business -- to fill the remaining managerial positions, Bauccio said. The move is the latest major outsourcing deal that the University has made in the past two years. In 1997, Penn announced plans to outsource most of its facilities management operation to the Dallas-based Trammell Crow Co., a highly controversial decision that affected about 160 employees, about 120 of whom were rehired. That deal was estimated to save the University about $15 million a year in facilities' management costs. The University has also recently outsourced the Faculty Club and part of its benefits administration department. While Moneta said that he could not compare the Dining outsourcing to the Trammell Crow deal, he did say that the Bon Appetit transition has so far been "relatively smooth." "Given how difficult outsourcing arrangements are, we handled this as best we could," Moneta said. "Generally, I think the outcome has been very positive." Bon Appetit will provide tuition and benefits packages to all Dining employees similar to what they have received from the University, Moneta said. Those packages include extending tuition benefits to the former Penn employees for 10 years as well as standard benefits such as medical, dental, vision and life insurance -- which should be roughly comparable to what they had received while working at Penn. Bauccio said that Bon Appetit aims to provide Dining with a "very customized approach, a very seasonal approach, with hopefully very fresh tasting food." Bon Appetit signed on last March to serve as the University's primary caterer and to advise Penn on Dining restructuring. The company also signed a deal to operate all food service facilities in the Perelman Quadrangle, the $69 million student center -- located in the heart of campus --scheduled to debut next year.

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