The future of food services at the Medical Center may be set for change, as at least three food service providers compete for control of four retail food venues within Duke Medical Center.
Duke's Division of Auxiliary Services, ARAMARK Corp. and Sodexho are all bidding on the contracts for Duke Clinic's South Cafeteria, the North Atrium Cafeteria, North Pavillion and the Searle Center.
Currently Sodexho, whose contract expires in June, manages both retail and patient food services and environmental services at Duke Hospital. ARAMARK runs several campus eateries, including the Great Hall on West Campus and the Marketplace on East Campus.
Bruce Riggins, director of business development in ARAMARK's healthcare support division, said he did not know exactly what changes ARAMARK would make.
"Obviously, there will be changes in training processes, programs, branded concepts," Riggins said. "Those kind of things will definitely change."
Riggins said it was unclear how much coordination between ARAMARK's campus and hospital services would occur if ARAMARK gets the hospital contract.
"It's usually up to the client," Riggins said. "We always look for synergies like that."
ARAMARK, a $7 billion Philadelphia-based food service, uniform and childcare provider, came to Duke in July and took over all the non-privatized food venues left on campus. ARAMARK also targets university medical centers.
Although all four venues are up for each bid, hospital officials may give certain contracts to different vendors, instead of selecting just one contractor for all services.
Joe Pietrantoni, vice president for auxiliary services, said his division would be well suited to run those food venues because the DukeCard infrastructure and payroll deduction are already in place at the Medical Center.
"We do their bus service for parking, and their decks--they buy bus service from us, DukeCard, vending machines, we do the mail rooms, and on request, do some printing," Pietrantoni said.
He said several campus vendors, such as Alpine Bagels and Brews and the owners of Han's Chinese and Grace's Cafe, have expressed interest in expanding to the Medical Center.
On the campus side, Auxiliary Services has largely devolved dining services to a slew of private contractors--including ARAMARK.
Among Pietrantoni's plans for the Medical Center are a visiting chef program, which would bring Blue Nile, Bread and Kabob and other Durham restaurants to the Med Center on a rotating basis. He also said Chipotle, a Mexican restaurant, might be an option.
Hardee's and Domino's Pizza are already part of the Medical Center's South Cafeteria food court.
Tom Quinn, who runs Sodexho's operations at Duke, could not be reached for comment. Sodexho has been at Duke for more than 10 years and has run environmental services for the last five years.
Administrators remained quiet about the process.
"We have kept those proposals and all very confidential," said Pat Meadows, associate operating officer of Duke Hospital. "This is really an internal matter."
Jane Pleasants, director of procurement services at the hospital, said the process will involve clinical staff, hospital administration, procurement services and finance officials before a decision is made.
Pleasants added that the process includes visiting sites similar to Duke and evaluating the performance of vendors.
Meadows said that although the process will largely be conducted internally, officials will consider employees' views. "Employees have had a say on this process through the mechanisms we use. They give us feedback continuously," Meadows said. "We hear from employees continuously. We have a sense of what they want."
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