First-year Mary Reising enjoyed her Strawberry Fields salad at The Den last week until she looked down to find a bug in the strawberry she was about to bite into. Disgusted, she threw away her food, but not before taking a picture of the bug to send to her friends.
Two other first-year DePauw University students have recently experienced similar food situations with their fruit from DePauw dining facilities. Many other students have complained about contracting food poisoning from the fish at the two on-campus dining halls.
While Reising states that her lunch experience last Wednesday was revolting, she did not talk to any of the Den staff about the bug she found.
"[I] picked up a strawberry, and, thankfully, looked down and saw the bug," Reising said. "I'm never the person to complain about my food. I feel too bad. I know the people in the Den are always busy, so I don't like to be an inconvenience."
Neither first-year Elizabeth St. John nor first-year Grace Pittner spoke up about the bugs in their food either.
St. John found a dead bee in a package of raspberries that she bought from the Den approximately three weeks ago. Pittner found what she believed to be a white worm in an orange that she was eating at the Hub over Winter Term.
"I was casually eating [the raspberries] while I was catching up on my Netflix in between classes," St. John said. "All of a sudden I looked down and there was the dead bee. I texted it to my pledge class GroupMe because I was just so revolted."
Pittner reacted similarly to her situation, and she explains that she is now careful when consuming any type of fruit at either The Hub or The Den.
"It's the same provider, so any fruit I get, Den or Hub, or even any of the cafes, I'm skeptical," she said. "I didn't get an orange here for probably two months [after the incident]."
Hearing about these incidents shocked General Manager for Bon Appétit Jason Rose, as none of the students came forward with their findings.
He explains, however, that it is much more common for bugs and other insects to be found in fruit than it would be in other food, because the food is grown on local farms and the products are exposed to wildlife and insects.
"Obviously these come from farms," Rose said, "and when you're talking about fruit and stuff, it does attract wildlife. Its not abnormal to see something like that."
Reising realizes that the fruit attracts bugs and does not blame Bon Appétit for the bee in her salad.
"I don't think The Den is unsanitary or nasty," she said. "I appreciate The Den and The Den workers. I just happened to have a bad experience, and I don't think that should be entirely reflective of The Den and the staff."
Despite her belief that the Bon Appétit staff is not entirely to blame however, Reising, like Pittner, is skeptical of eating food provided by the new on-campus food provider.
St. John, however, believes that the staff needs to pay more attention to the food they are giving to students.
"Sometimes it is really hard to control," she said, "but maybe when they are putting things on the shelves they need to pay more attention to things they are putting out."
Rose encourages students to contact Bon Appétit workers if anything is wrong with their food, and especially in instances of bugs.
"I would certainly encourage the students, if something like this happens in the future, to immediately bring it to the manager's attention," Rose said.
In addition to the instances of bugs, many students have complained of contracting food poisoning from the fish at The Hub and The Den. Rose, however, is not sure about the reliability of those complaints. He explains that the company underwent a health inspection on Thursday and it passed with no violations.
"Nobody can confirm that the food poisoning was a cause of the fish that they consumed here," Rose said. "I'm not sure that that's quite fair. We follow everything the health department in our company asks of us."
Following these complaints, Rose assures students that he will be in contact with the providers regarding these issues now that they have been brought to his attention.
"This is a teachable moment, "he said. "This is something that I certainly won't lock up in a closet and not tell anybody about. This is something I'll talk to the whole team about, including our vendors."