The school’s cafeteria food is provided by Epicure catering, a company based in Thailand specialized in educational catering established in 2003. Epicure is a subsidiary of Dusit Thani, an internationally recognized hospitality group with multiple business areas including hotels, hospitality school, catering, and resorts. “So we have a good understanding and knowledge over two decades on cafeteria and school canteen services where the catering company of competitors like Subdexo and PCS are more focused on hospitals and other catering sides, I don’t think there's any catering company in Southeast Asia like Epicure,” said Mr. Hartner, a Epicure’s catering manager at ISB. Epicure has a very close relationship with other international schools like Harrow and they’ve been working for over 10 years to build personalized relationships with the schools.
The main cafeteria menu has a 4 week rotation, meaning the menu is different every day of the month, as it is a priority to include different varieties of food. Mr. Hartner shares the weekly menu every Thursday with the high school department, which then gets posted on the Daily Bulletin. “It is very important for the cafeteria to keep up with the standards and provide a good service day in and day out through varieties of different menus and components of nutrients,” says Mr. Hartner. In terms of pricing, Epicure as a catering company proposes a new contract and pricing every 4 to 5 years to the school.
The food at ISB’s cafeteria is culturally diverse. Epicure introduced a new Burmese dish at the noodle station every Tuesday. The dish was a request from a student named Ocean, a sophomore who recently moved to ISB from ISY in Myanmar. Since the Burmese community is escalating, almost 60 to 70 Burmese students are now on campus, many students are able to enjoy their home country’s food. Korean dishes were newly introduced this year since the cafeteria works closely with the Korean community and PTA. The school also introduced new marinated salads, one or two new Japanese dishes, and a couple western and asian dishes at the live cooking station. Jonathan Vitayatanagorn, a senior athlete, shared his opinions about the school’s food. “My favorite dish from the cafeteria is Gai Yang because I feel like it’s the most flavorful. Complementing it with spicy sauce and rice is what gives a lot of synergy.” The food at ISB is enjoyed by many students; students who came to ISB from other IASAS schools also said ISB’s food is more advanced than their school’s cafeteria food.
However, not every food at ISB is every student’s preference. Students give feedback on the food served at ISB through anonymous pages, which allows Epicure to look for areas of improvement. “Some of the feedback we get is very constructive, some requests are sometimes a little bit over the top like chocolate fountains, ice cream, and frozen yogurt. There's certain things we allow to provide and certain things that are out of reach,” Mr. Hartner says. Samuel Han, a Korean senior at ISB, gave his feedback on the new Korean dishes on the menu. “I love that there is food that reminds me of home, and I think it's great that ISB tries to diversify its options. However, I think that sometimes the food is not executed correctly. Because I know what the food can taste like at its best, I tend to not eat the school version as it is not up to the standard I am used to. Basically, I think that the idea for diversifying is good but the food is not good enough when made that way.”
Jonathan also agrees that he liked seeing more diversity within the food displayed. He realized that there are certain dishes that are popular or not popular. He comments, “I don’t necessarily have a least favorite dish since I eat based on the presentation of the food. Maybe for foods where the lines are typically not lined up for can be removed and then replaced with an idea that the PTA or cafeteria staff can come up with. Think, guess and check, whatever works will be displayed at the cafeteria. This provides students with more tasty options to choose from and decreases the chances of one line being extremely long and then having an empty line in the adjacent side.”
Overall, Epicure is providing dishes that reflect the diversity of the school. Through trial and error, Epicure is creating menus to try to satisfy every student and teacher.