Behaviour and Preferences of University Refectory Users on the Kleve Campus, Degree program: Agribusiness

Students of the Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences have developed recommendations for further improvement of the university refectory menu on the Kleve Campus

Within the "Agribusiness consulting" module, fourth semester students from the "Agribusiness" undergraduate degree program conducted a business consulting project for the university refectory on the Kleve Campus on behalf of the Düsseldorf Student Services Organisation. "Business operations started almost a year ago. However, the newly founded university is still different in comparison with established universities. We wanted to know how the Student Services Organisation will ideally be able to react to corresponding needs," said Horst Kafurke, Head of Gastronomy at the Student Services Organisation in Düsseldorf who supervised the project in large part.

The students carried out an online user survey to establish factors such as frequency of use of the university refectory and favourite menus. Altogether approximately 500 students participated in this survey. Stefan Wietzorek, Student Project Manager, said "This large number reflects the high interest of students in this topic." In addition to the survey, students analysed the sales data of the past semester in order, for example, to assess the capacity utilization of the university refectory in the course of a day or  week and to identify especially popular dishes. Additionally, they conducted a benchmark analysis in order to find out about the differences between the Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences and other university refectories in North Rhine-Westphalia.

The results show that the university refectory has been very well accepted by students and guests in general. Wietzorek explained "The university refectory in Kleve currently sells 400 meals daily, which is an above-average performance in relation to the number of students." However, international students are still somewhat underrepresented among the students eating at the university refectory. "Better labeling of menus in English as well as more international food being on offer could help to improve this situation," said Wietzorek. One of the surprising results is that despite occasionally long queues at the university refectory the average queue time is less than 10 minutes. Dr. Martin Goch, Vice-President for Finance and Human Resources at the university said "Yet, the problem has been acknowledged and should be eased by a more flexible organisation of the timetables during lunchtime."

Wietzorek stated "The project work was not always easy, but it was fun. We could experience in a real project how management consultants set about tackling problems for their clients."

Download here the Project Details

Students: Nadia Braun, Christian Dieckmann, Md. Ariful Islam, Mst. Sharmin Kabir, Tasneem Sultana, Stefan Wietzorek, Regina Willems and Max Wilmsen-Schreuder

Responsible professor:

Herr Prof. Dr. Dietrich Darr
Hochschule Rhein-Waal
Marie-Curie-Str. 1
47533 Kleve

Tel.: +49 2821 806 73 - 245
E-Mail: dietrich.darr@hochschule-rhein-waal.de