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Chit-Chat: the reason for the party season

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colours said:
honestly blown away by the non-americans that are like "major chains on your campus??? wat" when that's a regular thing here...

like branded food is what people want. if you're going to offer some random cafeteria food, sure, some students might go for it, but the vast majority would probably eat off-campus at their desired fast food locations.
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ahaha just seems weird like. as i said above, no-one here can afford to buy food when they're out. that and most universities offer their own food in one way or another so there's little demand for that kinda stuff.

no-one cares about brands either - staying alive off as little money as possible is all that matters, at least over here, haha. hell, even "random cafeteria food" is WAY too expensive to eat on a regular basis. you're better off making your own food at home and bringing it with you
 
colours said:
honestly blown away by the non-americans that are like "major chains on your campus??? wat" when that's a regular and completely normal thing here.

like branded food is what people want. if you're going to offer some random cafeteria food, sure, some students might go for it, but the vast majority would eat off-campus at their desired fast food locations.
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Again. US=/=Europe.

And nope, not here when it's much cheaper and it's edible. We don't care about brands. Every saved euro counts.

Razor Leaf said:
ahaha just seems weird like. as i said above, no-one here can afford to buy food when they're out. that and most universities offer their own food in one way or another so there's little demand for that kinda stuff.

no-one cares about brands either - staying alive off as little money as possible is all that matters, at least over here, haha. hell, even "random cafeteria food" is WAY too expensive to eat on a regular basis. you're better off making your own food at home and bringing it with you
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Pretty much this too
 
colours said:
Sure, price matters a lot to people, but brand loyalty is also a HUGE thing, and you don't really get that much with local university/college eateries.
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The only loyalty Portuguese people have to non-human entities is football clubs.
 
Used to have an Arby's on the campus of YSU. It was the location where they tested new foods before rolling them out worldwide.

Arby's started right here in Youngstown, Ohio.
 
colours said:
The common perception, from my experience, is "the cafeteria food sucks id rather eat at (insert branded fast food place here)"
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Oh we have that too, we just don't eat at the branded fast food places, rather at the faculty snack bar or the Planetarium canteen. The latter is quite good tbh, and cheaper than fast food, so why fast food?

I mean, regardless if college/university owned food places do have decent food, it's not unusual for people to stick with what they're most accustomed to having, even if it means spending the extra money and having it off-campus.
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Well, we like to save every euro we can so we can waste it on beer on weekends :D
 
colours said:
LOL fair enough. This is actually a big focus of my project in business class right now: Do students eat on or off campus? If they eat on campus, where do they eat? If they don't eat on campus, why? Is it because of the price, or is it because of the quality of food, or is it generally because of preference? Some people are willing to pay higher price if it means getting the branded food that they want (like Chick-fil-A, KFC, McDonald's, Wendy's, Starbucks, Organic Food etc).
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it could actually be interesting to see how these considerations differ between countries. i'm willing to bet for example you'll see almost the exact opposite in the uk to what you see in the us (to most students in the uk, the price is 100x more important than the quality or the brand, for example). that might be a nice discussion point to include in your project 8)

Sure, price matters a lot to people, but brand loyalty is also a HUGE thing, and you don't really get that much with local university/college eateries.
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it's actually really interesting that you say this because, at least where i am, there's a pretty significant anti-brand loyalty mentality going around right now which i'm a big fan of. people are starting to say that your loyalty as a customer means little-to-nothing to mainstream brands, while the mainstream brands are taking advantage of the monopolies they hold to bring people very mediocre products. moreover, local businesses which give areas a feeling of integration and character are pushed out by big names, making them bad for communities. lots and lots of people are abandoning places like starbucks for local cafes and mcdonalds for long-term food trucks or burger bars because what you get is of way better quality and isn't tied into a massive toxic co-operation. your purchase means more to them than to a big name, and their presence means more to you than a big name's. or at least, that's how it's viewed. i'd be on-board with it myself if i could afford to be, haha.
 
colours said:
Yeah, I kinda wish that was the case here. :< It's like as I mentioned before; even IF the local alternatives are perhaps better in comparison (like say, if the university offered their own food but just made it better), I'm willing to say most people would still stick with their branded alternatives. It's unusual to me really; It's like they don't trust the university/college to make as much decent food than the bigger brands do. Or maybe some other reason I've yet to see, haha.
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probably just a combination of ease and familiarity. i can't honestly say i've ever heard someone say "nah, mcdonalds does better burgers than [literally any local place]". i'd even go so far as to say that the quality of the food isn't a consideration. people like familiarity and comfort and those things are what give big brands their monopolies.

you've got me rambling now, haha. a big example of this would be how people in the uk react to american chains which aren't usually here. there's a taco bell in this shopping centre near me, for example, which is a very rare sight in the uk and unsurprisingly, regardless of how good or bad its food might be, absolutely no-one goes there. this is despite the fact that there are no other major mexican fast food chains in the uk (to the best of my knowledge anyway - there are a few smaller, more upmarket, ones but i don't think that they're major to the level of something like taco bell) because it's completely unknown to us. meanwhile in the same centre there's a smaller, independent (and much much nicer) mexican takeaway place which has people queueing for miles because it's not losing on familiarity. inversely, in the same shopping centre, a kfc absolutely dominates anywhere else you can buy chicken from. familiarity is everything.
 
nz tends to be a mix of american and british attitudes, but we're decidedly more british in this aspect. like, given that my uni is in the biggest city in the country, there are naturally going to be branded things everywhere and the big chains (subway being the most notable example, as that particular store's clientele is almost 90% students) make most of their money from students making their way to campus and what not. but the campus itself is totally free of chains and the students association would rather close the cafeteria section entirely than allow, say, burger king to set up shop on campus.
 
It's been ages since I've been to a Las Iguanas. In terms of mid-range restaurant chains, that one's not too bad. It's no Wagamama, but what is!?
 
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