"There are three things that you can do which will be helpful," Weissbecker will write to undergraduates with board contracts, "assist us in eliminating waste by taking only what you can eat; please do not take food from the dining rooms; remember that unauthorized guests or meals taken dilute the value you receive from your board fee." (Weissbecker claims that uninvited guests who do not pay for their meals are paid for directly by the students.)

Whatever happens with price rises this year, Hall is confident that Harvard's "food service team" will be able to deal with them effectively. "Frank Weissbecker is an extremely talented and dedicated institutional food man," Hall says. "His and my primary emphasis is on the product--what goes out to the kids. Last year we had an excellent year--we just about broke even. This year it will be better."

"The food will never be like what mother cooks, but it's certainly pallatable," Hall says reassuringly.

Hall, a former vice president of the Sheraton Hotels, a subsidiary of International Telephone and Telegraph, is obsessed, in his own words, with "trying to please the customer." "It's not what we want that counts; it's what you want," Hall says.

And if the management approach to running a business is Hall's forte, then it is easy to see why he is so impressed with his "food services team." For Weissbecker and Benjamin Walcott, associate director of food services, say efficiency is the key to making the food services work. They say that they see the department, comprised of over 800 people, as one unit that works together and makes decisions together. Weissbecker claims that "If I am needed to assist in the kitchen then I will do it."

But, needless to say, the employees who work for the food services do not all work in the air conditioned offices of 399 Harvard Street, and only a few of them are Corporation appointees. Only 5 per cent of the employees are termed "administrative staff." The overwhelming majority are non-administrative full-time hourly employees, part-time hourly employees, and Harvard students.

Most of these employees work under conditions very different from those of their bosses. The non-administrative 95 per cent work in the kitchens of undergraduate and graduate eating facilities: the 13 undergraduate Houses, the Freshmen Union, Kresge Hall at the Business School, the Harkness Commons at the Law School, Vanderbilt Hall at the Medical School, and others.

The Food Services Department graduate school budget alone is up to about $2.5 million for fiscal 1974-75, bringing the total budget to around $9 million, (the undergraduate budget being $6.5 million).

Of this, 43 per cent--or approximately $3 million--will be spent in purchasing. Weissbecker says that the buying of food by the purchasing division is done on an annual competitive bidding system. After contracts are made, two buyers go directly to the wholesale markets to inspect the products of the 130 vendors from which the department has agreed to buy. When the buyer give his stamp of approval, the food is delivered to the food service areas where it is prepared and served.

Some students would dispute that the meals they are served represent "the utmost in excellent food"--the goal set by the food services in Hall's administrative handbook. And given the continuing inflation with which every household must contend, students expecting this year's $80 board hike to improve the quality of their meals should probably expect to be disappointed.