Students can order from Moghul Fine Indian Cuisine without worrying about masala sauce seeping through their take-out container, but now restaurants throughout the Marketplace are switching to the mess-free containers.
When the Marketplace opened last year, every restaurant except Moghul was supplied with white compostable containers for students who wanted their meals to go. These containers are relatively cheap in bulk and provide enough room for large portions, making them a good fit to be used in the Marketplace eateries, according to Jim Ruoff, the general manager of Sodexo Campus Services at Binghamton.
Moghul, a restaurant with a variety of sauces and wet condiments, uses a different kind of leak-proof container that prevents a messy meal. This plastic take-out container, although smaller, is sturdier and retains heat better than the compostable cardboard. However, other restaurants that serve meals with sauces do not take leakage into account. According to Ruoff, students have complained that pasta dishes from Pandini’s have a tendency to soak through the bottom of the cardboard container.
Adam Centeno, a sophomore majoring in economics, said he enjoys getting the chicken Parmesan pasta dish from Pandini’s, but complained it is often too messy to eat because of the containers.
“It’s super annoying,” Centeno said. “I have to ask for a double almost all the time.”
In the beginning of this semester, Ruoff heeded the students’ complaints and decided to begin to use Moghul-type containers at Pandini’s.
But implementing the new containers at only Pandini’s was not enough for some students. Skylar Clemens, a sophomore majoring in computer science, said the cardboard containers are also ineffective at other restaurants such as Mein Bowl, where the oil seeps through the thin containers. He added that all Marketplace eateries should switch to more practical containers.
“It would save up on doubling containers and reduce the amount of paper they use,” Clemens said.
According to Ruoff, the Marketplace goes through about 3,000 or 4,000 containers a day. Because the current cardboard containers are biodegradable, they are more environmentally friendly than Moghul’s containers. The new take-out boxes, however, are made of more organic materials, said Megan Gorski, retail manager of Sodexo at BU.
“They are made using Genpak’s resource reduction process, making them 24 percent lighter than traditional microwavable containers,” Gorski said. “They also use more organic material in the production process, using less raw materials and resources to create the bowls. Raw materials are standalone ingredients like petroleum oil. Organic materials are completely natural.”
She noted that the new containers also weigh less.
“It takes 375 less tractor trailer loads to ship the same number of cases as it would a competitor,” Gorski said. “That translates to over 740 truckloads and 85,000 gallons of diesel fuel annually.”