Experience Design / Menu Strategy / Kitchen Design

Creating the foodservice platform to do it all.

Aramark was founded in 1936 with a mission to deliver an impact where people work, learn, recover, and play. Aramark has operations in 19 countries and is listed as the 27th largest employer on the Fortune 500. 

Said simply, Aramark has a massive reach. When changes happen at Aramark, the ripple effect changes the landscape of institutional food service across the globe.

Aramark ensures that food is provided in our most quotidian environments- universities, healthcare facilities, or the workplace. These are places where many of us spend the majority of our waking hours, thus our expectations as diners rise ever higher. With relatively fixed operations, how can a single platform deliver on every guests’ needs, day after day without becoming mundane and predictable?

By first modeling in detail the range of occasions, needs, and flow for both guest and operator, we built the system around the primary needs of the people: quality and variety. While Aramark already provided both, their foodservice model was not driving the high engagement that they desired.

Inspired by modern food halls, TCE created a system of modular, technologically enabled stations to allow for scalability, versatility, and mobility. Modules expand and contract according to business-type, labor model, and guest flow. This evolving self-service model drives guest interaction, improves merchandising rotations, and offers more variety within a manageable operating platform. We call it the Simple Spoon.

The Simple Spoon food hall is the core new offering by Aramark and has been rolled out across 3 facilities in the US. In fact, it’s so effective the Aramark use this model at their Headquarters as a hub for both staff catering and multiple culinary R&D programs Take Aramark’s word for it here:

Collaboration is the Heart of our Kitchen.