The SMFA Café, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts’ only Tufts dining location, made changes to its pricing method, increasing the overall cost of food. Items that had been priced according to weight will now be charged through a fixed box price with two size options.
Students say that despite the rising price of food, the price of their meal plans — which have students use “money” through SMFA Meal Money and Rhinobucks rather than meal swipes at the SMFA Cafe — remains the same.
“[The price increase] is a horrible decision because I’m still paying the same price for my meal plan while the price [of food] is rising,” Lin Xu, a sophomore at SMFA, said. “I feel like it is not fair. Also, although the price is rising, the dining time hasn't changed and also, the diversity of the food inside the cafe doesn't change as well.”
As a result of the price change, Xu has found herself going to Emmanuel College for dining, which is an option on her SMFA meal plan. Students said they also go to Emmanuel on weekends, when the SMFA Café is closed.
Vera Su, a third-year combined degree student at SMFA, was originally planning on using the SMFA Café for ingredients to complete her home-cooked meals. She was taken aback by the sudden change.
“I felt very surprised that they changed the system, because I thought that it was working fine,” Su said. “My plan as a junior was to just cook rice at home and then pay by weight for whatever vegetables or proteins that they have [at the SMFA Café], but now I can’t do that anymore because they’ve switched to the box system.”
Xu discussed the limits of the SMFA Café, which often caused her to bring some food from home and then buy more food at the reduced weighted price.
“The SMFA Café doesn’t always have rice or pasta, some carbohydrates,” Xu said. “I remember when I was in my [first] year, I always cooked rice and I would take [that] box of rice and then take away the General Tso’s chicken inside the SMFA Cafe and the broccoli, so I get a full meal combined.”
Patti Klos, the senior director of Dining Services at Tufts, largely attributed the changes, including slight price increases for other items, to rising prices and inflation.
“It’s really driven by the accelerated price increases we saw last year,” Klos said. “Some of our items were under priced and under market price and so there were some corrections that had to be made.”
She also said Tufts Dining would be rolling out a half-size box in addition to the current medium and large, which would be more affordably priced.
However, students say they were never told about the changes. Su said she was only made aware that the method of pricing had changed when she went up to pay, expecting to pay for her items by weight.
“They didn't specifically publicize it, and there’s also no signs about it yet,” Su said. “I had no idea until I went to the counter to pay that they had made this change.”
Klos explained that the flyers her team typically posts for changes at the SMFA Café were likely never posted.
“I’m not sure that the [flyers] that we planned to display were posted,” Klos said. “That’s our fault. We do try to let people know as these things are happening that they’re happening and so we regret, I regret, that those flyers may not have gone out.”
The elimination of the weight system raised concerns about food waste and healthy eating.
“People may eat unhealthier amounts because they’re worried about food wastage,” Su said. “I feel like the weight system was much better, because it makes you more conscious about what you’re going to eat and taking only what you need.”
In response, Klos hopes students are careful not to waste food, though Tufts Dining does watch how much waste is produced.
“I think food waste is up to all of us. We certainly try to right-size portions where we can see what's being wasted,” she said.
Klos also added that they welcome student feedback and work to address concerns.
“We have a feedback form and we have signs [to] the survey with a QR code and please give us your feedback,” Klos said. “While we can’t necessarily address every single thing that students want, we do take their feedback very seriously and try to respond as well as we can.”
