All around the nation, preschools, primary, middle and high schools, and college and university campuses are reopening and returning to the “new normal” of campus living in a COVID-19 era world. Avanti’s food service solutions, including Smart N Go Markets and micro markets were already good options for school and college campuses, now they might be the ideal food service solutions to get students back to school. 

While on-campus classes may be resuming, the use of big dining halls packed with students for meals may be a thing of the past. A QSRweb article lists seven ways that COVID-19 has permanently altered the food service landscape. Avanti’s Smart N Go Markets check six out of the seven boxes when it comes to the new normal in campus food service: 

1. Food-safety-first mentality 
2. Expanded sanitization behaviors and awareness 
3. Curbside pickup 
4. In-store self-ordering with no-touch payment 
5. Improved take-out packaging 
6. Expanded demand for take out or delivery of high-quality food 

Smart N Go Markets provide campuses with fresh foods, snacks, and ready-to-heat meals via intelligent, secure, and enclosed vending coolers. Even as a method of distribution, our vending units help to promote food safety. Instead of a traditional dining hall or snack bar where food preparation and service requires handling by one or more people, Smart N Go Markets dispense food without additional handling. 

Market operators regularly inventory, restock, and clean Smart N Go market units. These vending units can even be used to sell personal protective equipment and supplies such as masks and hand sanitizer. 

Smart N Go markets are modular, making it easy to assemble in any configuration or size and scope needed. Your campus provides the space/s, power and network connection, our Smart N Go markets do the rest! This versatile campus food service solution can provide students, staff, and guests with access to healthy, fresh food and snacks 24 hours a day. 

Even before COVID-19 made it a necessity, our technology was designed to enable campus students, faculty, guests, and others to self-serve when it comes to food selection as well as low-contact and no-contact payment options. Read more about how Smart N Go markets use technology to enable food safety, self-service and touchless payments. 

People are more aware than ever of safety when it comes to even everyday actions, like shopping for food or eating out. They want to know that food packaging contributes to food safety and to preventing or reducing the potential transmission of germs and viruses. Smart N Go Markets safely offer packaged and stored foods, including fresh food selections and snacks to promote the health and well-being of customers. 

Smart N Go markets are incredibly versatile. They can be stocked with as wide or even potentially a wider variety of beverages, fresh foods, snacks, and other items than other campus food service solutions are able to offer. Unlike traditional vending machines, they are can stock items that vary widely in size and shape. 

Furthermore, smart vending units placed strategically in multiple areas can be stocked appropriately for a variety of audiences, such as faculty and staff in teachers lounges and breakrooms, for students near classrooms, sports, and social areas, for students in dorms, and so on. 

Today’s students – and an ever-growing number of teachers, faculty, and school staff – appreciate high-quality, high-tech, self-service options whether they are shopping for food or anything else. They are comfortable with technology and expect to be able to pay for food on campus via apps and touchless payment pads. They also expect to have convenient access to fresh foods and snacks throughout campus on their time-table. 

When it comes to campus food service, a number of factors go into perceived “quality.” The availability of fresh foods, variety of selection, options for people with dietary restrictions, whether food is perceived as healthy or unhealthy, price, cleanliness, nutritional value, convenience, presentation, setting, and other considerations all impact perceived quality. 

Traditional vending machines are simply not equipped to provide the kind of quality food service that meets the expectations of students, staff, and other guests. However, Smart N Go Markets have the ability to meet and even exceed the expectations of stakeholders when it comes to all of the factors that impact perceived quality. 

In the highly competitive educational market, improving the quality of campus food service by expanding the options available to students, teachers, faculty, and guests by adding our market units or using them in lieu of vending machines or traditional dining solutions can increase stakeholder satisfaction with the campus experience. 

Student retention hinges on satisfaction not only with the quality of education, but with the campus experience as a whole. Research shows that dissatisfied students may drop out or transfer to other schools where they believe their overall experience will be better. 

Food service is an important part of the campus experience. Having access to food perceived as high quality, fresh (vs. processed), healthy, and of a wide variety of options can increase student satisfaction. Not only does the Smart N Go Market system provide for these things, but it also contributes to food safety, as described above. 

Our markets can be used in addition to campus food service or in lieu of providing food services in shared dining spaces. Students who are concerned about food safety and social distancing can still get the high quality fresh food they need and want. The versatility of these units means they can be placed at multiple locations, precluding the need for students, teachers, faculty, or guests to traverse the campus for food or gather in significant numbers. 

Students are not the only ones who care about your campus food service. Parents and guardians who pay some or all of a student’s educational costs also make judgements about whether campus food service provides a good value.   

Like employees at any type of organization, faculty, teacher, and staff satisfaction is also impacted by the quality of food available to them during their workday. BenefitsNews.com shared nine ways that office food fuels employee satisfaction and productivity, including: 

• 20 percent of employees say food perks would positively impact satisfaction 
• 60 percent said having more food available to them at the workplace would make them feel more appreciated 
• 51 percent said they spent 10 or more minutes a day off campus picking up lunch or other food or beverages and more than half said they would spend less time away from work if food was available   

Having a variety of quality food available on campus (whether free or at a cost) enhances employee health and safety, since they do not need to leave campus to get food for meals or snacks. You can leverage Smart N Go Markets can be configured to support stored value cards for employees and to allow for discounted employee pricing. 

Colleges and universities that used food service as an auxiliary service to raise additional money can choose to operate Smart N Go Markets for the same purpose. Avanti will work with you directly, providing you with in-house experts who can walk your team through the process of designating space, ensuring proper power and internet, designing modular units, and guiding you through the process of how to use your markets effectively and efficiently.   

Colleges and universities that outsourced food service to a vendor and prefer to leave management of the markets to others can do so. Avanti can pair you with a local market operator with the expertise and man-power to fully manage Smart N Go markets wherever you want them on campus. 

In either iteration, this versatile campus food service solution offers additional benefits, including flexibility and responsiveness. Market operators can quickly change the selection of items available in response to requests from administration or even from students themselves. 

Selections of food and beverages available for purchase in unattended grab-and-go markets can be changed seasonally (such as including more heat-able foods during colder months), and inventory levels can be modified upwards or down depending on demand and residency levels. Foods and beverages can even be changed to meet emotional needs! At the beginning of the pandemic, there was increased demand for “comfort food” items; however, a month or so after lockdowns and college campus closures occurred, food service demand for healthy items that contribute to wellness increased 21 percent. 

Food insecurity is not a product of the COVID-19 era, but certainly the virus and its impacts on schools, colleges, and universities has caused it to increase. Even before the pandemic, an estimated 40 percent of college and university students in the U.S. lacked consistent access to the meals they needed. A significant number of student athletes and others who relied on full or partially subsidized room and board as part of their education have experienced moderate or severe food insecurities. As students return to an on-campus environment for classes and boarding, many will still feel the repercussions. 



Boarding schools, colleges and universities can help to assuage food insecurity by making fresh, healthy, nutritionally, and physically satisfying food more available to students throughout the entire campus, including near classrooms, sports facilities, and dorms. Smart N Go Markets can be set up in small or large spaces, adjacent to those areas most convenient for students, and institutions can subsidize the cost of food purchased from market units for individual students partially or even fully. 

The flexibility of our market units is unparalleled in unattended retail including vending and micromarkets. Students can avail themselves of cold ready-to-eat foods or purchase ready-to-heat foods from Smart N Go Markets to supplement their dining plan or as a traditional campus dining plan substitute. This can be an especially ideal solution for college campuses and universities should temporary shutdowns resume and relying on large campus dining operations is unnecessary, impractical, and even financially impossible. 

There was already increased demand by students (and all consumers) for transparency about food (where it comes from, how it is prepared, what its nutritional value is, whether it may contain common allergens, etc.) before the pandemic. Smart N Go Market units make it easy for students and faculty to view food items stored safely, at appropriate temperatures, through clear glass. They can also view nutritional and caloric labeling or look up information about foods or by swiping payment and opening the unit door. They can pick up and examine products but are only charged for what they remove once they door is closed. If they choose not to purchase an item, they can put it back from where it was retrieved and they will not be charged for that item in the transaction. 

Many colleges and universities have radically changed campus food service in the past year due to the pandemic. Some of the ways colleges have temporarily or permanently changed on-campus dining, vending and overall food service include: 

• Temporary outdoor dining in tents 
• Requiring table reservations to limit capacity and ensure social distancing 
• Limiting the amount of time a student can spend in the dining area 
• Limiting the number of students allowed per table 
• Enhanced sanitation – closing between meal periods for extra cleaning and sanitization, cleaning beverage and other self-serve areas multiple times per hour 
• Switching to single-use (recyclable, compostable, or disposable) plates, containers, and silverware 
• Takeout-only eateries with no cash transactions 
• More grab-and-go, delivery, and order-ahead options 
• Extended dining hall hours or more dining locations to allow for social distancing 
• Temperature checks and increased sanitization protocols for foodservice staff 



Food transparency and understanding how schools have changed to make campus food service safer and healthier as a whole is important to the concerns of students, teachers, faculty, staff, parents, and other guests. With more campuses set to re-open or return to full capacity in the coming months, it is important for colleges and universities to assess ways in which they can change their food service and dining programs now, in order to be fully ready to serve and satisfy students and faculty.