RE:DISCOVER | MILLS COLLEGE PIVOTS TO GROCERY PICKUP

General Manager Merilee McCormick hands a Mills College graduate student her grocery box order

RE:DISCOVER | MILLS COLLEGE PIVOTS TO GROCERY PICKUP

WHEN CALIFORNIA WENT INTO SHUTDOWN in March, more than 200 Mills College undergraduate and graduate students stayed on the leafy, tree-filled Oakland campus, along with 35 or so critical college staff members such as security, student life, operations and finance. Although about half the students eventually went home, students began trickling back to attend late-summer bridge programs. Mills College asked Bon Appétit General Manager Merilee McCormick, Executive Chef Cynthia Motta, and a small team to fig ure out how to feed everyone remaining on campus in an efficient, safe, and cost-effective way.

Merilee centralized all the campus food operations at the Mills Tea Shop, which already boasted a small convenience store, grab and go cooler, and a limited but spacious servery with room for socially dis tant ordering and payment. She began stocking non-food items such as toilet paper and aspirin, and pantry staples, and offering grocery orders. Basically, people could give her a list — sometimes as late as that same-day morning — and she’d bundle them and order them to be delivered to her through Bon Appétit’s regular distributors.

Some supplies came right from campus. The Mills Farm was pro ducing like crazy over the summer, and offered its own communitysupported agriculture subscription box. Merilee worked with Mills Farm Manager Julia Dashe to offer extra produce, herbs, and flowers in the Tea Shop grocery boxes. Cynthia began making a weekly Mills Farm-inspired pizza for pre-order, and incorporating the produce into specials.

Executive Chef Cynthia Motta makes pizza from scratch using Mills Farm ingredients

“It is great to see how these new offerings have been embraced and we are pleased to make them a regular part of the Bon Appétit service to support our community,” said Renée Jadushlever, vice president for strategic partnerships at Mills. “Mills values our collaborative relationship with Bon Appétit and appreciates the creativity and out-of-the-box thinking of Merilee and our team to address perceived challenges in providing services at this unprecedented time.”

Grill Cook Gary Chun restocks the Mills shop’s popular items