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Monday, March 18
The Indiana Daily Student

Catering service provides healthy meals to Greek houses

Brad Richardson, chef of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, prepares green pepper for the salad bar during lunchtime on Thursday at Alpha Epsilon Pi house located on Jordan Ave. Richardson has been a chef of the house for two years. He and his staff prepare three meals during weekdays and two meals during weekend for the students living in the house. Richardson said his work includes designing the menu on a weekly basis and cooking from scratch with fresh ingredients.

The young mens’ eyes gazed into the kitchen as Chef Brad Richardson prepared dinner for the evening at the Alpha Epsilon Pi
Fraternity.

It wasn’t a usual: pizza, Top Ramen or mac and cheese.

“Pesto Farfalle is one of my favorite dishes to cook,” Richardson said.

Richardson is an executive chef for College Fresh, a catering service for fraternities and sororities nationwide that prides itself on using the freshest ingredients to make healthy meals.

College Fresh partner Russ Proch said it is a fairly young organization, as this is only their fifth year of operation. Although young, they’ve had great success, he said, serving to 55 clients on 18 college campuses. Five of them happen to be at IU.

“We provide quality, healthy food,” he said. “We’re also very service-oriented, which means that we will go out of our way to take care of our client’s needs, whether that be cooking special meals for dietary restrictions, or even if people don’t like a meal on a certain night — we’ll make them something else.”

Richardson said having an open dialogue and catering to any dish asked of them in the kitchen is what leads to their success.
Proch said there’s a stigma associated with college food; that it’s terrible and unhealthy. College Fresh tries to change that stigma, he said.

“Not only do we cook with the freshest ingredients, but we post the menus for every house we cook for on our website so people can see what we’re all about,” he said.

AEPi House Director Linda Lamirand said College Fresh has been accommodating to their meal plans.

“Our House Steward works directly with the chefs to keep up with the meal items the guys like,” she said. “Fresh ingredients are used in the meal planning, which to us means more healthy and appetizing.”

Director of Client Services Jack Dawson said College Fresh acts as a great opportunity for students because it gives them the feeling and taste of a home-cooked meal even while away at school.

“We are looking to expand, but we don’t want to grow just for the sake of being big,” he said. “We don’t want to get so big that we can’t take care of our clients. After our first year at IU with only catering one fraternity, other houses heard of us and started taking us on. We don’t want to be the biggest, but we want to be the best.”

Richardson is currently in his second year as an executive chef for College Fresh and doesn’t plan on leaving any time soon, he said.
“The next step for me is to work up to becoming an area manager here at IU,” he said.

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