Corporate food

Most days a bunch of us from iFQ walk down the street to the Wissenschaftzentrum (Research centre) for lunch.

I am not entirely sure what goes on there: it has variously been explained to me as a conference centre as well as a quasi-governmental science-funding body (like NSERC in Canada). Anyways, it has a big cafeteria. It's the closest, cheapest place to eat. I noticed on only my second time there that the cafeteria is run by...

You have probably never heard of this company, but it is one of the largest food-solution providers in the world. They run the kitchens for the US Marines. They are currently providing sustenance for the entire Paris-Dakar race event (which, for reasons I won't get into, does not run between Paris and Dakar). And they used to run the cafeterias at the NRC back in Ottawa.* The funny thing is that despite the fact Sodexo is a French company, it produces some very bland food. Everything else about it is great: It is efficiently prepared, with both a protein and a starchy item to provide a nutritionally balanced meal. The menu varies from day to day, and it certainly reads well (as much as I can understand the German ingredients). Yet it lacks flavour just as the food back at the old NRC did. Amazing how a corporation can engineer freshly-prepared food to taste the same all around the world. 

* = Before the bean-counters found an even cheaper company to feed us. Gone were the salads and varied menus of a multi-national. Replaced by well-meaning, but mentally-challenged burger-flippers who grudgingly offered an assortment of oily muffins and mystery meat.