Open Letter: FedUp Campaign goes ‘All In’ on abolishing Aramark
Dear Concordia University undergraduate community,
FedUp is a student campaign that took off in Fall 2024, with the ambition to transform Concordia’s food system. We’re in the middle of the Concordia Student Union (CSU) elections—a pivotal time to shape the landscape of possibilities for student movements—and we’re taking this time to make clear who we think are the candidates on the ballot that share our ambitions for a better food system at Concordia.
Concordia is a massive university, home to approximately 36,000 undergraduates, 10,000 graduates and 7,000 faculty and staff. The economic impact of the university is comparable to that of a small town. Its food contract—a package deal whereby a single company caters to several restaurant locations, and both Concordia’s residence halls—is estimated to be in the range of $5-7 million.
For the past 10 years, Concordia’s food contract has been held by Aramark. Aramark is a name that has become synonymous on campus with prison food. This is because, over the past decade, the student body has amassed considerable grievances against both the horrific record of the company and the dubious quality of its food through social media pages, op-eds and campaigns.
Last November, that sentiment was transformed into a mandate, with 83 per cent of students voting to abolish Aramark altogether. The CSU, which represents all of the 1,000 residence students, now has a firm mandate to push out Aramark. They are also mandated to co-develop a community-based alternative called Equi-table, a working project of the Concordia food system spearheaded by fee levy groups the Concordia Food Coalition and SEIZE.
This mandate, however, is toothless without the student representatives to back it up. It is clear to us at FedUp that there is only one team on the ballot who are prepared to carry that out: All In.
Two of the executive team of All In—Mia Kennedy and Isabella Providenti—were previously involved with FedUp. It was their advocacy for food justice, amongst other causes, that led them to the CSU. We believe that grassroots struggles are exactly the kind of environment in which student representatives should be forged.
We therefore wholeheartedly endorse All In, and encourage our fellow undergraduates to elect them as our next student representatives. Together, we can build a next-generation food system at Concordia that prioritizes the needs of students, over and above the bottom lines of exploitative multibillion-dollar corporations.
Voting will take place online, between March 11 and March 13.
In solidarity,
FedUp Concordia
Mia Kennedy and Isabella Providenti were not involved in the writing of this letter.
