Following 14 months of soliciting community input into content for the Request for Proposals, the RFP was sent out to Pepsi and Coke in late January 2012 and has been responded to by both companies. Director of Dining Service, Steve Kjellgren and Vice President – Finance, Ken Westphal are grateful for the valuable content that was included in the RFP resulting from student surveys, recommendations from Health and Exercise Science and Environmental Studies,research conducted by students in Dr. Tunhiem’s Organizational Behavior class, and contributions from interested faculty, staff, students, and friends of the college.
Following careful consideration of how each beverage provider responded to the RFP and in consultation with the Kitchen Cabinet and other college officials, Vice President Westphal and Director Kjellgren plan to announce the successful beverage and educational partner in late March 2012.
Following is the content of the Request for Proposals:
Beverage Products & Services 2012
January 2012
Beverage Products & Services Bid – Request for Proposals
Gustavus Adolphus College is seeking proposals from experienced and qualified beverage service providers to supply nationally branded soft drinks and other beverages to the college community through a pouring rights contract. At a minimum, the agreement will ensure broad product availability, selection, and service at a reasonable price to the college, while providing financial benefits to both Gustavus Adolphus and the beverage and service supplier. Additionally and within the RFP, will be opportunities for the supplier to respond to an invitation to partner with the college in its educational mission to its students and community. The successful proposal will be determined at the discretion of the College in recognition of the combined financial and non-financial proposals.
The College’s current bottled and canned beverage contract expires on March 31, 2012. Under a separate contract, the fountain beverage agreement is in effect until July 31, 2012. However, it is the desire of the College to offer beverage products, canned, bottled, and fountain (exclusions noted within the RFP) from a single beverage provider identity; i.e., canned, bottled, and fountain beverages would reflect a single corporate product line. To this end, an adjustment in term is herein requested commencing with a contract start date of July 1, 2012.
The College is seeking a contract duration of seven (7) years with an extension option of three (3) years to be negotiated in February 2019.
The deadline for Beverage Products and Services Proposals is March 7, 2012. The College will announce the successful beverage and service provider on or before March 31, 2012.
Gustavus Adolphus College Contract Representatives:
Steven E. Kjellgren Kenneth C. Westphal
Director – Dining Service Vice President Finance and Treasurer
Gustavus Adolphus College
800 West College Avenue
St. Peter, MN 56082 – 1498
Attachment: Beverage 2012 RFP
January 2012 Beverage and Service Provider Request for Proposals
Gustavus Adolphus College is seeking proposals from experienced and qualified beverage service providers to supply nationally branded soft drinks and other beverages to the college community through a pouring rights contract. The following information is intended to guide and inform the content of proposal submissions:
College Mission and Core Values
Gustavus Adolphus College is a church-related, residential liberal arts college firmly rooted in its Swedish and Lutheran heritage.
The College offers students of high aspiration and promise a liberal arts education of recognized excellence provided by faculty who embody the highest standards of teaching and scholarship. The Gustavus curriculum is designed to bring students to mastery of a particular area of study within a general framework that is both interdisciplinary and international in perspective.
The College strives to balance educational tradition with innovation and to foster the development of values as an integral part of intellectual growth. It seeks to promote the open exchange of ideas and the independent pursuit of learning.
The College aspires to be a community of persons from diverse backgrounds who respect and affirm the dignity of all people. It is a community where a mature understanding of the Christian faith and lives of service are nurtured and students are encouraged to work toward a just and peaceful world.
The purpose of a Gustavus education is to help its students attain their full potential as persons, to develop in them a capacity and passion for lifelong learning, and to prepare them for fulfilling lives of leadership and service in society.
Gustavus Core Values
Implicit in this statement of institutional purpose and goals are certain institutional values that guide the Gustavus community. These values are rooted in our distinctive heritage and help to define our community. They also help us to focus on appropriate objectives for our college, guide the selection of priorities among those objectives, and help to shape the strategies we will pursue in the face of various challenges and opportunities.
Excellence
First among the College’s shared values is a commitment to high quality and excellence in all that we do. Commitment to excellence calls on all of us to achieve to the very best of our capabilities and exceed our own expectations. Our distinctive heritage demands nothing less than excellence.
Community
Gustavus has always prized community. Civility, mutual respect, cooperation, shared governance, and a pervasive sense of concern for every member of the Gustavus community are hallmarks of the College. Freedom to express a broad range of ideas is central to our sense of community.
Justice
Our Swedish and Lutheran heritage lead us to hold up justice as a primary institutional value. We strive to be a just community in all of our actions and to educate our students for morally responsible lives. “Education for the common good” is our objective, and integrity must be one of our defining characteristics.
Service
The College highly values service as an objective of life and education. We embrace the notion that authentic leadership expresses itself in service – the classical ideal of a truly liberating education. Education frees us to serve God and humanity to the best of our abilities.
Faith
Conviction that religious faith enriches and completes learning is the foundation of community, ethics, and service. We are compelled to excel in a divinely ordered world. Without expecting conformity, we encourage an honest exploration of religious faith and seek to foster a mature understanding of the Christian faith.
While there are undoubtedly additional values that distinguish Gustavus from other institutions and that guide and define us, these five values are certainly pervasive within and foundational for the College community.
Strategic Goals
• Educate for leadership and service.
• Engage education at the intersections.
• Engage with the world to make a difference.
• Engage faith to inspire understanding and lives of leadership and service.
• Engage in responsible and ethical stewardship.
More About Gustavus
Prospective Beverage Providers are encouraged to view the College Organizational Chart located here: https://gustavus.edu/president/files/gustavus-organizational-chart-10.pdf and the ‘About Gustavus’ Webpage located here: https://gustavus.edu/about/ . Important information regarding enrollment, number of faculty and staff, number of students who reside on campus, etc., will prove to be helpful in the preparation of the RFP.
Types of Services and Product Volume
The College assumes all prospective beverage providers have previously been provided (or are otherwise in possession of) past and projected canned, bottled, and fountain syrup product volume. Likewise, it is assumed the prospective providers are familiar with the college beverage service facilities located within Residence Halls, Administrative, and Academic Buildings, Athletic Facilities, the C. Charles Jackson Campus Center Building, and other locations served by the Gustavus Dining Service. Requests for additional product or facility data may be directed to Director of Dining Service, Steve Kjellgren. Proposals shall include pricing, variety, and package size information for canned, bottled, and soft drink fountain syrup along with accompanying detail of energy efficient merchandise service and display coolers and refrigerated vending machines to be provided.
As stated in the RFP Cover Letter, the successful beverage and service provider will ensure broad product availability, selection, and service at a reasonable price to the college, while providing financial benefits to both Gustavus Adolphus and the beverage and service supplier. Competitive wholesale pricing and gross margins as suggested by recommended retail pricing and vending commission rates will be given a great deal of attention by the College.
Excluded:
The following beverage items shall be considered Exclusions and outside the scope of the RFP:
• Brewed Tea
• Brewed Coffee
• Hot Beverages
• Fountain/Bulk 100% Juice and Concentrates and Juice Blend Beverages
• Dairy Beverages except dairy-added cold coffee bottled/canned beverages
• Alcohol, beer, wine
• Novelty/Locally Produced/Environmentally, Socially, or in other ways significant items that support and enrich the Gustavus mission and values. These items will represent less than 5% of contractually provided items by volume and may be disclosed to the beverage provider by name and volume on a quarterly basis.
• NCAA contractually specified products.
• College Performer/Entertainer contract specific products (rider specified).
• Desirable non-competing items as agreed upon between the College and beverage provider.
• Merchandising of non-contract beverages will not take place within equipment provided by the contract.
• While not currently in practice, the college reserves the right to discontinue the support of the bottled water industry by excluding from retail and vended beverages, bottled and canned water in forms the college community deems appropriate.
(Prospective providers may, at their discretion, submit a proposal to provide a subset of these items under terms of a separate contract that will have no decision-bearing influence on the proposal at hand.)
Additionally, prospective beverage and service providers are encouraged to plan and suggest ways in which they can creatively, strategically, and financially partner with the College’s Academic goals and stated mission.
While commitment to the institution with outright financial support is desirable, the College is very interested in hearing ways in which a Beverage Provider Partner will respond to the following:
1.) The College has been ranked nationally as a ‘Fit’ college. By their very nature, many soft drinks provided by beverage companies do contradict our efforts and designation of ‘Fitness’. In which ways will the beverage partner actively promote fitness and healthy lifestyles at Gustavus? Specifically, how will the partner help educate our community and what resources, financial or otherwise, can be committed to this concern?
2.) As stated in the College Mission Statement, Gustavus students are challenged and encouraged to work toward a just and peaceful world. One of the College Strategic Goals is to engage the world to ‘make a difference’. How would the beverage partner share with the college their work and aspirations (as global corporations) toward a just and peaceful world? Are there corporate resources and strategies and global advocacies that might be shared with the college in the form of symposium or lecture series? Are there internship opportunities available for students interested in learning more about global citizenship and multinational government relations? Are there ‘in-country’ resources that may be made available to our International Experience courses in India, Central America, and elsewhere? Are there other ways in which the beverage partner can engage the College in an educational dialogue about the needs and rights and quality of life of all peoples?
3.) Gustavus Adolphus College actively promotes and aspires to be a leader in the area of Environmental Stewardship. The College offers a baccalaureate degree in Environmental Studies, promotes curriculum across disciplines – from chemistry and biology to philosophy and peace studies to physics to history to marketing and management and beyond – on the topic and importance of Sustainability and the Environment. The Johnson Center for Environmental Innovation, located on campus, suggests that “environmental stewardship and sustainability cannot be located in any one program or department, but must be the business of the entire community”. How might the beverage partner assist the College’s aspirations? How might the partner share their own passion for the environment with the College by way of communicating production practices and packaging options to our students? Are there corporate experts who might lead on-campus discussions on the topic of the Environment and Sustainability within the classrooms or with the campus at large? Are there financial resources that might be directed to the Environmental efforts of the College in the form of Student Scholarships or support of the on-campus garden or composting program, or to augment the College’s alternative energy solar collection and wind power programs?
4.) Gustavus Adolphus College is seeking a beverage provider partner who will also engage the College as an Educational Partner. What creative educational means and efforts will the beverage partner commit to provide on an annual (or more frequent) basis? Are there Marketing professionals who could offer real world perspective to our Marketing and Management students? Are there research chemists or engineers who could lecture our chemistry and physics students? Are there specific internship opportunities for our students at local or regional or national or international locations that can be developed?
Final Considerations
Gustavus Adolphus College educates students inside its classrooms, inside its residence halls, on the athletic fields, in the dining rooms, and at every opportunity and in any way it can. There is great opportunity for a Beverage Partner to grow beyond a provider of soft drinks to an Educational Partner in health, environment, society, consumerism, and whole person education and growth. Great care will be taken to identify a Beverage Partner who understands this opportunity and commits its resources and expert knowledge to the education of Gustavus students.
Responses to the 2012 Beverage Request for Proposals shall:
1.) Include an original, signed response in contractual form submitted by authorized company official/s.
2.) Include three (3) copies of the authorized original.
3.) Include a copy of the corporation’s current liability insurance coverage.
4.) Include one copy of the response document in ‘read-only’, Windows compatible, electronic format. Either CD-ROM or USB-read data storage is acceptable.
5.) Be submitted by noon, March 7, 2012 via Certified mail to:
Steven E. Kjellgren, Director – Dining Service
Gustavus Adolphus College
800 West College Avenue
Saint Peter, MN 56082-1498
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