Columbia University students are costing the university money, school officials say, because they are hoarding Nutella. |
On Campus, Costly Target of Brazen Thefts: Nutella
by James Barron
This has all the makings of a tempest in a Nutella jar, which may not be as appealing as a Nutella milkshake, Nutella fudge or Nutella-stuffed French toast. Or stolen Nutella, which, apparently, has mouthwatering appeal at Columbia University.
Last month one of Columbia’s undergraduate dining halls began serving Nutella every day, not just in crepes on weekends. For the uninitiated, Nutella is a creamier-than-peanut-butter, chocolate hazelnut spread from Italy that a college student might eat a whole jar of in a single sitting when the pressure is on.
The problem was that the Columbia students went through jars and jars of Nutella — at least 100 pounds a day, according to a freshman member of the Columbia College Student Council who had urged the university’s Dining Services operation to provide it in the first place. Apparently they were not just eating it in the dining hall. They were spiriting it away in soup containers and other receptacles, to be eaten later.
Columbia University started offering Nutella in early February. |
“People take silverware, cups and plates, and that adds up over the course of a year to a lot of money,” he said. “With Nutella, it added up much more quickly. Where Dining might have to spend $50,000 to replace silverware and cups, they were spending thousands of dollars on Nutella in one week.”
Ms. Dunn “told me it was close to $5,000 in that first week,” he said. As for the amount of Nutella that Columbia students were consuming, or at least loading up on and walking away with, he said, “I was told it was more than 100 pounds per day.”
How much more? “That was all I got,” he said.
Before hanging up on a reporter who called on Wednesday, Ms. Dunn said: “I’m not allowed to comment on anything. You have to go through university communications.”
A spokeswoman declined to comment on the Nutella situation at Columbia. She said that numbers quoted in The Columbia Daily Spectator — and repeated by Mr. Bailinson in a telephone interview on Wednesday — were “speculative and inaccurate” and that the cost figures were “roughly 10 times greater than the actual figures.”
Nutella is widely available on school campuses, though precise figures could not be obtained. It was also unclear whether Nutella hoarding had become a financial concern on other campuses.
Columbia University Dining Services said the theft of Nutella has been a problem. |
And Jeff Desroches, a junior, said he had made off with Nutella — enough to last all day — when he was stressed out before final exams.
“Usually,” he said, “people apply peanut butter on one slice of the bread and Nutella on the other slice, but I apply thick layers of Nutella to both slices of the bread.”
The brouhaha went public on Feb. 22, when Mr. Bailinson wrote a message on a Facebook page for Columbia freshmen.
“I posted it trying to get people to be aware of why Dining charges as much as it charges for things,” he said. “I was saying that when people take more than they’re eating for that one meal, that takes away money Dining could spend on improving the dining experience. My original post said please don’t take more than you need at one meal or we’re not going to get more of these cool products. That got interpreted as Dining is going to take away Nutella because we’re using it so much.”
Students are consuming larger quantities of Nutella than expected, according to a Dining Services official. |
Mr. Bailinson, who said he liked to spread Nutella on sandwiches, had his own explanation for why the Nutella issue had caught on.
“It combines three things people at Columbia love: People love Nutella, people love complaining about the dining halls and people feel there’s a problem with how the administration handles things,” he said. “This Nutella situation is a perfect storm of all these interests coming together.” — The New York Times
No comments:
Post a Comment
"Be as smart as you can, but remember that it is always better to be wise than to be smart."