Over the past few months at Haverford College, concerns have arisen among the student body surrounding the nutritional information of certain foods available in the Dining Center.
“About a week after I came back from break, I noticed…a [Dining Center] worker refilling the [fat-free] greek yogurt tub…I looked at the container they were refilling from and saw it said “9% milkfat” on the label,” Leah Cohen, a Haverford sophomore, said over an email interview.
Cohen, who ate the Dining Center yogurt daily, had noticed a change in the yogurt taste and texture a month into the school year, but continued to eat it despite experiencing frequent nausea. Upon investigating the container being used to refill the “fat-free” Greek yogurt tub, Cohen found out that the yogurt being marketed as fat-free actually contained 20g of fat per serving. “I suddenly understood why I was feeling constantly sick,” Cohen said.
When she emailed Dining Services to inquire about the mislabeling she did not receive an email in return, but the label was changed to reflect the actual nutritional value. A few days later, the yogurt had changed again and the fat-free label was back. When Cohen began to eat the yogurt again, she experienced no sickness.
“I am very pleased that the DC has gone back to (I hope) true fat-free yogurt, but I’m concerned that this was an issue in the first place…I feel that the lack of transparency around nutrition is strange; they clearly received my email…but did not reply to me or acknowledge that I experienced this,” Cohen reflected.
Dining Services did not respond when The Bi-Co News reached out for comment on this incident.
Similar concerns arose about the olive oil bottle available at the salad bar. During the beginning of the school year, the bottle was labeled with a small band that read simply, “olive oil” but this prompted students to point out the potential mislabeling of the product, doubting that the bottle contents were actually pure.
When The Bi-Co News reached out to Dining Services for comment, it was ascertained that the contents of the bottle were, in fact, according to Food and Beverage Manager Alexander Hathaway, a 51/49 Extra Virgin Olive Oil / Sunflower Seed Oil blend from a brand called Corto.
“We’ve been testing several labeling options for our bottles of dressing, but many have not worked effectively,” Thomas Mitchell, Director of Dining Services, said in response to the labeling concerns. The labeled rubber bands at the beginning of the year were premade and did not have one for an olive/sunflower oil blend. The rubber label on the olive oil bottle has since been removed and replaced with a paper label reflecting the correct nutritional information.
The blend itself is a new addition to the dining center–according to Mitchell, in previous years, the olive oil blend available in the salad bar was a 75% canola oil, 25% olive oil mix. Amidst growing concerns surrounding overprocessed seed oils, the blend was switched over the summer of 2025. “We believe this change [to the olive/sunflower oil blend] represents an improvement in both quality and nutritional value,” Mitchell said.
Dining Services plans to welcome a new registered dietitian to the team in January, and Mitchell plans to discuss the possibility of switching the oil again–this time to pure, 100% olive oil. This switch would be around three times the cost of the current blend, according to Mitchell’s preliminary estimates.
As of now, the blend, like the yogurt, is here to stay–with the correct label, that is.
