beyond the bubbles: negotiating an educational partnership with a soft drink giant

Beyond the Bubbles:negotiating an educational

partnership with a soft drink giant

A college cafeteria is not going to stop serving soft drinks.*

How can it use its soft drink provider to do more than

dispense carbonated sugar water at a profit?

Dancing with the devil?

*Not a tuition driven college, anyway!

GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS COLLEGE gustavus.edu

ABOUT GUSTAVUS

A

residential liberal arts college

• Located in rural southern Minnesota: corn and soybeans

• 2600 students, nearly all of whom live on campus; 11% U.S. students of color.

• A “middle class” college: our endowment is modest

• Our mission, core values and strategic plan emphasize service, social justice, environmental stewardship and wellness

• Students are moderately aware/committed to global justice issues; 50% study abroad, and we have majors in peace studies, gender studies, African studies, Latin American studies.

BEYOND THE BUBBLES: Gustavus Beverage Contract


ABOUT THE GUSTAVUS DINING SERVICE


•Approximately 6000 ala carte meals served daily

•Pay per item has reduced post-consumer waste by nearly 80% over traditional ‘all you can eat’ meal plans, HOWEVER…

• Many convenience store type items for purchase including

444,000 units of canned and bottled beverages annually

•Approximately 6000 ala carte meals served daily

•Pay per item has reduced post-consumer waste by nearly 80% over traditional ‘all you can eat’ meal plans, HOWEVER…

• Many convenience store type items for purchase including

444,000 units of canned and bottled beverages annually

Gustavus

Gustavus

SHOULD IT SAY WE ARE SELF FEEDING, OR WHATEVER THE RIGHT EXPRESSION IS?


ABOUT THE KITCHEN CABINET

An

advisory committee to the dining service director• Membership comes from all campus constituencies

• Charge to the Kitchen Cabinet includes:

• consulting with the Director, at his/her request, on matters that involve ethical, socio-political, dietary, or pedagogical uses of the Dining Service;

• examining the role of the Dining Service in the College’s mission, and making recommendations about that role;

• supporting the Dining Service in supporting the mission, by educating the community about what the DS does.




THE END OF A CONTRACT

After 15 years as a “Coke college,” our contract was expiring.How should we choose our next beverage provider?


COKE? PEPSI? JONES SODA? NOTA?

Steve, supported by the Kitchen Cabinet, created a process for the community to participate in making this decision

• Prompted by a desire to make a decision based on something other than profit and product availability.

• Guided by the Dining Service’s aim to be at the center of the educational mission of the institution, and to use its work to embody the five core values.



COKE? PEPSI? JONES SODA? NOTA?

Opti

ons we seriously considered included: • No contract: buy our own equipment and purchase product from the cheapest source. (An expensive hassle.)

• No soft drinks at all: in a year characterized by “bottled water bans,” we explored the ramifications of getting rid of pop* altogether. (Our admission office said “hahahahahahahaha.”)

• “Someone else”: was there a small beverage company (say, Jones soda) that could handle a contract of even our relatively small size? (Steve said “hahahahahahahaha.”)


*Yes, we are Midwesterners

Gustavus

i added a few things here.


IF NOT PROFIT, THEN WHAT?

What other factors should shape our choice of beverage provider? Concerns of our community included:

• “Coca-Colonialism”

• Health: the nutritional challenges of carbonated beverages

• Environmentalism: plastic waste on our own campus is the tip of the environmental iceberg

• Greenwashing: corporations using educational institutions as “human shields.”



SLIDE CATEGORY TITLE

WHO IS THE DEVIL?

We sought, in part, to find out: Is there an

answer to the question, ‘who’s

worse: Coke or Pepsi?” And by what measure(s)?


INVOLVING THE COMMUNITY

We employed a variety of tools to invite our community to help shape the request for proposals

• A “Dear Colleague” letter (copy available in electronic packet)

• A targeted letter, sent to individuals and constituencies we especially wanted to involve (e-packet)

• Cartoons! (find us on youtube!)



GUSTAVUS CHOOSES A BEVERAGE PROVIDER

Gustavus

check to see if you can see teh cartoon when you click in the center



Over the next 18 months, we gathered information from:

• Members of the Kitchen Cabinet, who researched the two viable vendors.

• Individual students, who emailed anecdotal information and sometimes more statistical info

• Two marketing classes, that conducted research on the community’s preferences.

One goal: to “take the pulse” of the campus.

• What does matter to our students and why?

• How can and should we influence their priorities?




Marketing research classes, taught by Kathi Tunheim:

• Economics/Management 261, Organizational Behavior and Management

• Five-student teams conducted mission, vision, and values review for each company

• Conducted ‘woman/man-on-the-street’ interviews with students and staff

• Constructed Survey Monkey tool to assess community preference

• 1029 Responses – 92.5% from Students



INVOLVING THE COMMUNITY (E/M 261 CONTINUED)

And the answer

is?...6

6.6% prefer Coke or either beverage line

S

tudents phenomenally under report consumption (where do 444K drinks go?)

E

cological concerns are moderately or very important to 73.7% of respondents

C

ommunity involvement and civic responsibility are important to 61.5% of respondents

5

6.8% feel there is no difference in the values and general corporate practices of the

corporations. 21.8% feel Pepsi is better ; 21.5% feel Coke is better

8

4.5% of respondents are not aware of or do not care about any negative or positive

corporate activities

8

5.9% feel there are health implications associated with soda consumption


Gustavus

can this be clearer?


THE REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

O

ur RFP (in e-packet) had an unusual structure:• Began with description of mission, core values and strategic plan—and only then went into the specifics of our beverage needs.

• Asked respondents to “plan and suggest ways in which they can creatively, strategically, and financially partner with the College’s Academic goals and stated mission. While commitment to the institution with outright financial support is desirable, the College is very interested in hearing ways in which a Beverage Provider Partner will respond to the following [four requests].”


Steve Kjellgren

Can we include the entire RFP in the packet? or is that too much paper? Can we mail our materials out in advance rather than lug them along?

Gustavus

let's make a few copies and then get a list of folks' names who want one; we can send them a zip file of the whole thing.

Gustavus

i think we make an electronic copy available to everyone, but take along a few paper copies that folks could look at on site.


THE REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

The

four specific “asks”:• In what ways will the beverage partner actively promote fitness and healthy lifestyles at Gustavus?

• How would the beverage partner share with the college their work and aspirations (as global corporations) toward a just and peaceful world?

• The College actively promotes and aspires to be a leader in the area of environmental stewardship. How might the partner share their own passion for the environment with the College…?

• Gustavus Adolphus College is seeking a beverage provider partner who will also engage the College as an educational partner. What creative educational means and efforts will the beverage partner commit to provide on an annual (or more frequent) basis?



DECISION 2012!

P

epsi responds:• Both companies observed that our proposal was different from any they had dealt with before….and….they appreciated the opportunity to think ‘differently’ in their approach to proposal generation. But…

• The unsuccessful proposal responded more traditionally, by designating a cash gift (read: Sponsorship) and inviting us to use it as we saw fit.

• They also used very dull pencils while proposing wholesale cost of goods.



DECISION 2012!

Coke responds:

• Annual financial support for direct college operations

• $10,000.00 annual scholarship funding , disbursed at the discretion of VP for Enrollment Management.

• $20,000.00 annual Sustainability/Health Education Program , awarded by a committee of interested Gustavus faculty, staff, students and representative/s from Coke.

• $1000.00 annual ‘Live Positively Education Research Grant Program,’ the first of its kind. The grant will support Coca-Cola’s seven ‘Live Positively’ commitments: Beverages for every lifestyle; Active Healthy Living; Community; Energy Efficiency and Climate Protection; Sustainable Packaging; Water Stewardship; Workplace diversity, safety, respect of international human rights



LESSONS, THOUGHTS, HOPES

How does positive social change happen when you engage with a corporate giant? The fears:

•Greenwashing

•Capitulating compromise

•Lip service of engagement with our campus but no follow through




How does positive social change happen when you engage with a corporate giant? The hopes:

•Constructive compromise (not human shields for corporate greenwashing) Think Jane Addams!

•Ninja moves

•David invites Goliath to try a different way: the little guy affects corporate culture

•(Can we put ads in their bathroom stalls advertising Gustavus?)




Working with students: some lessons learned

•Our politically engaged students 18 to 22 years old often tend to be all-or-nothing thinkers, uninterested in compromise.

•It is difficult to make students believe that they genuinely have a part in a decision as big as this; they find it more believable (and less work) to say “The Man” makes all the decisions and their input is irrelevant.

•We tend to like to go to bed when their meetings are just starting.

•This process has tremendous potential on a campus like ours.


Thanks toGustavus Kitchen Cabinet; Professor Kathi

Tunheim; Vice President Ken Westphal; President Jack Ohle; and all the community

members who contributed their thoughts

Presentation materials available at

http://kitchencabinet.blog.gustavus.edu/conference-presentation-materials/

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Beverage coolers abound!


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600 Seat Evelyn Young Dining Room

Gustavus

these are great pix! can you figure out how to make them fill the white space?

beyond the bubbles: negotiating an educational partnership with a soft drink giant

Documents

gustavus adolphus

gustavus beverage contract

gustavus dining service

beverage provider

coke college

soft drink giant slide

dining services

kitchen cabinet