While there are a variety of favorite snack choices at Geneseo, it is clear that not all snacks are available on-campus. As students, we are given limited snack selection through grab-and-go choices in dining halls and vending machines.
By not offering a wider array of snacks, including Pepperidge Farm options, many students suffer through choosing their second favorite snack.
It is imperative that Geneseo offers more snacks and broadens its scope on which companies provide food. It seems that Geneseo has many Nabisco products available to students. Adding Pepperidge Farm to the products on-campus would introduce more cookie options beyond Chips Ahoy and Oreo. Having a greater cookie assortment would appeal to students, as according to a 2015 study from Barnes and Noble, 70 percent of students going for something sweet will reach for a cookie.
Snacking has been around for a long time and has been advertised in Back to School catalogs for as long as students can remember. The same Barnes and Noble study found that “70% of students eat multiple snacks a day.” According to the study, “51% of students pick up a snack” when they are bored, and 50 percent said, “eating snacks while they are busy studying actually helps them to concentrate.”
It is evident that snacking is important to students, and this is even more essential in college when stress levels are high. Therefore, the snacks on-campus must be diversified as this lack of viable alternatives on-campus leaves Geneseo students at a disadvantage.
Having the same kinds of snacks on-campus causes Geneseo students to spend more money on food off-campus, because their cravings are not satisfied by the readily available snacks on-campus. Integrating foods by other companies into our dining halls and vending machines will allow students to feel excited about snacking.
This will also enable students to study more efficiently, since students will not have to get up so often from studying to purchase snacks off-campus.
The variety of snack products available to students does not have a major effect on the overall college experience; however, it can still satisfy a lot more than one originally would think. As the Barnes and Noble study shows, snacking is an essential part of a student’s lifestyle, which is why Geneseo must pay more attention to the snacks provided to its students.
Geneseo students do not want to continue traveling off-campus and spending more money to purchase something that is so integral to their happiness. As college students, we do not have the type of bank account that can support this habit and our campus should satisfy our snacking needs.
A possible first step in integrating more snacks that would make students content is by offering Pepperidge Farm products. It is imperative to continue pushing toward bringing more food variation to this campus, specifically snack foods. As students study and work hard, it is important they can find comfort in buying and enjoying their favorite snack on-campus.