MORGANTOWN — Sodexo has got to go — quickly.
The WVU Board of Governors on Friday voted to terminate its contract with global food service and facilities management giant Sodexo for cause.
The school wants the company out of all facilities by June 29.
A one-year bridge contract with an unnamed vendor was approved and will take effect on or around June 30. WVU is not releasing the name of the vendor at present.
Online job postings in recent weeks show Aladdin Campus Dining is looking for personnel “to support our operations team that is dedicated to serving West Virginia University in Morgantown.”
The board voted to outsource its food services in 2018 and approved a 15-year contract with Sodexo that would have expired in 2033.
The body extended the contract by three years in May 2021 citing disruptions from COVID-19 — despite an already mounting dissatisfaction with the company.
Representatives of Sodexo were pulled before the WVBOG in February 2022 to answer a host of complaints about food quality and dining options.
According to comments offered Friday by Vice President and General Counsel Stephanie Taylor, the company — which provides residential dining, retail dining and catering services on the Morgantown, Keyser and Beckley campuses — has made little to no headway since.
“Critical performance issues in multiple areas of the services have resulted in multiple recent efforts to encourage Sodexo to perform as it promised in its contract. None of those efforts that have consumed WVU’s time, financial resources and patience have been successful,” Taylor said. “We allowed time for a transition, and over the past several years, WVU has made multiple attempts to resolve those ongoing issues with Sodexo’s performance. Despite these efforts, Sodexo’s performance has not improved.”
WVU moved forward with the contract dispute resolution process in November.
Taylor ran through a litany of reasons why. A non-exhaustive list includes: Poor food quality and service, failure to comply with cleanliness, sanitation and maintenance standards, failure to accommodate students with special dietary needs, overcharging services and products to customers, making improper charges to contractual funds, wasting assets and capital investment money, and failure to provide required marketing and IT services.
“Sodexo has repeatedly failed to provide food services consistent with the quality standards required in the agreement and promised in our RFP process,” Taylor said.
