Congratulations on your acceptance to Moravian! Getting into your top schools may have been daunting, but now it gets tricky deciding which school best meets your needs. Factor in food allergies, Celiac disease, or medical concerns such as Type 1 Diabetes, and the decision gets even trickier. The dining team at Moravian College is here to help!
Moravian College Dining locations are equipped and dedicated to accommodating customers who have food allergies, Celiac disease, and other dietary needs. Our managers communicate daily with customers, to help provide safe, healthy, and delicious options. Your campus dining experience should be enjoyable, and Sodexo takes pride in creating site-specific options where customers with allergies can safely choose and enjoy their meals. We want to meet one-on-one with anyone who has individual dining needs to ensure that your dining experience is safe, delicious, and social.
Sodexo works closely with FARE (Food Allergy Research and Education) to promote allergy awareness and improve the quality of life for students with food allergies. You can find more information on the FARE website at Preparing for College.
Let’s tour our dining facilities to see what’s in store for you:
The Star Campus Restaurant & Clewell Dining
The Star is our primary resident dining restaurant in the Haupert Union Building (aka the HUB) where students can use their meal swipes. It is also a dining venue where we do not serve peanuts nor tree nuts. Rest assured that we are diligent in keeping peanut and tree nut-containing foods out of the kitchen, out of storage, and out of service.
Allergen-free Simple Servings at the Star
Simple Servings is our award winning, allergen-safe, station for our customers with food allergies, gluten intolerance, or those who prefer plain and simple foods. In addition to being free from peanuts and tree nuts, Simple Servings offers food free from wheat, soy, shellfish, milk, egg and gluten. We do serve fin fish, such as tilapia and salmon, to ensure adequate protein offerings.
Self-serve is NOT an option at Simple Servings. Our dedicated staff members are trained to avoid cross-contact with food allergens. Simple Servings staff use separate equipment, storage areas, utensils, and preparation areas to minimize the risk of gluten and allergens in our Simple Servings foods.
75% of Simple Servings items also meet our Mindful by Sodexo® criteria, which makes it an easy and healthy choice for customers focused on ingredients and portion size to control weight, blood sugar and other health issues.
Clewell Dining
Located on South Campus, this venue is also without peanuts and tree nuts. Made-to-order options are standard at Clewell which allows students with special needs to order exactly what they want.
At both locations, the Star and Clewell, we offer a gluten-free “pantry” called MyZone. This special area is cordoned off and offers gluten-free bread products, pre-packaged frozen foods, and desserts and gluten-free waffle mix. My Zone gives students the ability to be involved in their own allergen-safe meal preparation with a dedicated toaster-oven, microwave, and waffle maker. Steamed rice is also available daily at MyZone.
Blue & Grey (B&G) Café and DeLight’s Café
Want to eat gluten-free ingredients? Then Garbanzos, located in the B&G, might be for you. Almost every menu item is free of gluten (exceptions are the gyro meat and regular pita) and it is THE ONLY location on campus for French Fries that have not come in contact with gluten thanks to the dedicated fryer.
At CRU5H, also in the B&G, we serve five varieties of items, including milkshakes, breakfast sandwiches, apps like Buffalo wings, grilled items like burgers and Mexican favorites. All are made-to-order and all can be made with allergen/gluten safety precautions.
Beware, though, that packaged nuts and nut butters, and other products made with nuts are sold in the Blue & Grey Café and at DeLight’s. Anything house-made by our staff in our kitchens will be peanut and tree-nut free.
DeLight’s Café in the Sally Breidegam Miksiewicz Center for the Health Sciences is where you’ll find our very popular Starbucks location, as well as Zime Bistro and Natural! Smoothie. We offer sandwiches, salads, and snacks here at Zime, but the kitchen and prep areas are small and cross-contact could be an issue. We also serve baked goods from an outside bakery that may have come in contact with several allergens including nuts, eggs and milk. Smoothies at Natural! Smoothie are fruit and vegetable-based—we do not use dairy milks or protein powders, but we do use coconut water, as well as soy and nut milks in our smoothies, and they are prepared in a shared prep area. Soy and nut milks, specifically almond and coconut milk, are available for use in coffee at Starbucks as well.
Staff Training
All of our supervisory, culinary, Simple Servings, and management staff are AllerTrain® certified and are required to take a 3-hour course and pass an exam. Additionally, all dining employees receive food allergy training at least annually at our employee meetings. We run on-the-spot food allergy training at all locations throughout the year as well. As Moravian Dining’s Registered Dietitian, I also serve as an AllerTrain® Certified Master Trainer. For more information on what AllerTrain® is all about, follow the link at the end of this post.
Finding Nutrition Information
If you are in need of carbohydrate amounts because you are a diabetic, calorie info because you are watching your macros, or if you want to determine which menu items are vegan, you can access this information in several ways:
- Online on the dining services website which can be accessed here: Moravian.SodexoMyWay.com > Dining Near Me > Menus
- Via the Bite by Sodexo menu app, which is free in the Google Play or Apple store.
- At point of service in the Star.
- Simply ask our staff.
- Our Registered Dietitian is also available to answer questions you might have about the menu too.
Bear in mind, though, that the online menu and app are linked to a Sodexo recipe database. We might need to adjust menu items due to factors beyond our control such as adjustments from our suppliers or even unforeseen staffing issues.
Important Campus Information for Food Allergy, Celiac Disease or other Medical Dining Needs
For students with medical conditions that impact their ability to dine well on campus, we strongly encourage a conversation with our Executive Chef, Registered Dietitian and/or our General Manager. In many instances, our dining team can easily assist with special needs. You can find out more about Dining on campus on our Dining website: moravian.sodexomyway.com.
Occasionally, Dining Services cannot meet a student’s medical needs within normal service. We may require additional medical documentation to enable us to develop a more specific meal plan accommodation. In this situation, we ask that the student contact the Moravian College Academic and Accessibility Support Center. Together, our departments work to serve our students with medical needs related to dining on campus. To contact the Academic and Accessibility Support Center, email asc@moravian.edu or call 610.861.1401
Meet the author, Registered Dietitian Susan Hurd
Susan Hurd, RDN, LDN is a graduate of Rutgers University. She has 20+ years of experience as a Registered Dietitian with Dining Services on college campuses. Available for complimentary consultations on topics such as: food allergies, Celiac disease, diabetes, or other special dietary needs, eating healthy on campus, vegan and vegetarian nutrition, weight management, or for campus presentations, Sue has a passion for leading a healthy lifestyle and empowering people of all ages to reach their healthiest potential through
food and nutrition. Sue also assists students on campus that have dietary restrictions, helping them become more comfortable in their new dining environment.
Contact her or use the feedback form to request a consultation. Sue also suggests you check out Moravian Dining’s daily menus, also available by downloading the free Bite app. Find out more about the Mindful by Sodexo program at Mindful.Sodexo.com. Follow Sue on Instagram @campusdietitian_sue. Learn about AllerTrain® ANSI accredited food allergy training at Allertrain.com.