Before moving from the Hill to an off-campus apartment, I never imagined that food security would be an issue for me. However, I have become increasingly concerned that I can’t afford to spend $7 on a balanced meal and can’t eat fast food every day for lower costs.
Food security implies reliable access to affordable, sufficient and nutritious food. The University of California Office of the President launched the Global Food Initiative to address this serious problem that is permeating our society.
To address the problem of food security, Undergraduate Students Association Council President Heather Rosen recently proposed a plan to implement a student-run food cooperative pilot project at Ackerman Union to offer perishable items and fresh groceries such as fruits, eggs and vegetables at a reduced price. It can be seen as an extended student food collective where students order and pay for food online and pick it up at Ackerman Union.
The food will be from a local farm and offered at a reduced price, saving students the fees of transporting goods and other additional costs. The startup cost will come mainly from the Student Organizations Operational Fund and Green Initiative Fund. Further logistics will be discussed during Rosen’s Friday meeting with Associated Students UCLA.
Rosen’s project has great intentions, but it is no different from the various student food collective projects that already exist, such as UCLA Student Food Collective. Similarly to food collective projects, food co-ops order raw ingredients in bulk to lower the price each person has to pay, but it’s not providing immediate meals like the food closet is.
The ideal student-run co-op would be a cheaper and smaller version of “Ralphs” located in Ackerman Union that offers both affordable groceries and quick and proper meals.
To truly help students who don’t have time to cook and students who are living under a tight budget, Rosen and her team should consider options such as offering bread and premade salads. This would allow the food co-op to cater to the needs of most students.
Bread and prepared salads are key to a student-run co-op because they contribute healthy, nutritious and cheap meal options for students without the work or hassle of cooking. With these ready-to-eat options available, students will have their food security safeguarded, knowing that there’s one place they can go for fulfilling and nutritious food at a low price.
USAC and its UCLA Student Food Collective partners can offer bread through the exact same means that they buy other groceries – purchasing it in bulk from a local supplier at a lower price and sharing the cost among students. This move would bring diversity to the groceries available and greatly alleviate the problem of food security.
Currently, offering bread is not an option under consideration by Rosen’s team in the short term. However, students who use the food closet managed by Community Programs Office said they would be willing to buy bread at a similar price to the ones sold at the main grocery store. If the food co-op is trying to save the students from the trouble of doing frequent grocery runs, it would be beneficial to have a one-stop location for everything including bread.
Moreover, the food co-op should sell vegetable salads to make up for the nutritional values that food in the food closet lacks. Veggie salads can be made on the spot by students individually using the same ingredients they sell and be sold at a reasonable price, preferably below $4 for a large serving size. This would provide a nutritious, fast and healthy alternative to students.
Veggie salads are important because they can be eaten immediately without any prior cooking or cleaning and would be cheaper than the veggie salads offered by other food vendors on campus. Simply converting the vegetables students bought into salads on the spot would save the additional cost of processing them and ensure their affordability.
In addition, students are often busy during their lunch hours, so it’s inconvenient for many of them to walk to cheaper dining locations in Westwood for lunch. With bread and salads available, the food co-op could be a quick stop for students to grab an affordable lunch.
If the food co-op insists on selling raw food only, students’ needs for quick, cheap and proper meals wouldn’t be satisfied because they would have to prepare the food beforehand. In particular, students who can’t cook would benefit immensely from the affordable options the food co-op offers.
One potential obstacle is protests from ASUCLA vendors such as Greenhouse, which offer similar meal options at a higher price. When meeting with ASUCLA on Friday, Rosen needs to persuade these vendors that the variety of food available through a food co-op would be of a much smaller scale and would not pose significant competition to vendors because students who can afford to buy from them will still opt for the variety of salads and food provided there.
Setting up a food co-op is a great idea that is truly intended to help students and address our basic needs. However, USAC should take the responsibility to make sure that good intentions last long and there is a proper administrative system in place to oversee the entire operation.
Many times when we are able to pay for expensive meals to get through the day, we forget there are still people who are struggling to get quality food. The food closet and food co-op are just the first steps to ensure the basic right of food security for all students. There are many more things we should do, not as individuals, but as a Bruin community.