By Jennifer Nibley
BYU catering services will be highlighted at the National Association of College & University Food Services 2004 National Conference in Las Vegas starting Monday, July 5.
The conference will provide the management and leadership of college and university dining services new and proven methods to improve dining services on their campus. The best of the best college and university dining services will showcase their successes at the conference.
'Representatives from over 400 colleges and universities in Mexico, Canada and the United States will attend the conference,' said Dean Wright, director of BYU Dining Services.
Wright will present virtual tours of selected campus convenience stores and share BYU catering''s remarkable stories in pre-conference workshops, Monday and Tuesday. Conference officials asked BYU representatives to share their remarkable stories as an award-winning catering department said Lynse Hansen, general manager BYU catering/restaurants.
'We are always on our toes to create remarkable events that will make us stand out from our competition,' Hansen said.
BYU catering''s full-time staff will attend the conference and help to show some of the unique techniques they have used at athletic events, receptions, the Olympics and more. A couple of the unique ideas that BYU has used are chocolate fountains at BYU football games and a mount on a catering table covered with wheat grass and split by a river for the ice carving competition during the 2002 Olympics.
'What sets BYU dining services apart are two things,' Wright said. 'Our attention to detail and our ability to make ordinary things extra-ordinary.'
In addition, BYU''s Creamery on 9th is also known as a service ahead of its time, said Barbara Lettich, assistant manager of BYU convenience store, and co-chair of the conference''s convenience store sessions. Representatives from about 40 colleges and universities have come to BYU to tour the Creamery over the past three years, Wright said.
'Convenience stores is one of the fastest growing segments for college and university dining services,' Lettich said.
BYU dining services have won eight Loyal E. Horton Dining Awards for excellence and the Theordre H. Minah Award, highest award of excellence presented by the association.
'BYU has been a member for over 30 years,' Wright said. 'We are viewed as having one of the best dining programs in North America.'