What started as the idea of one Massachusetts college student may soon change the way students at the University eat.
The Off-Campus Meal Plan, an East Coast company that has expanded to the West Coast, is now offering its services to students here.
The program, similar to on-campus dining plans, allows students to use an OCMP card and a points-based system to pay for meals at more than a dozen off-campus restaurants throughout Eugene.
OCMP spokesman Mike Hauke hopes the program will grow to include more and more restaurants over time.
“Some of our other schools have 60 restaurants, 40 restaurants, 30 restaurants,” Hauke said. “It all depends.”
Hauke said the program tries to eliminate some of the weaknesses of on-campus dining programs.
“From a student’s perspective, it’s awesome,” Hauke said.
Before OCMP offers its services in a new location, the company does two years worth of research. It surveys students in order to find out which restaurants they frequent.
“It’s all based on student involvement,” Hauke said.”
The company maintains a 24-hour phone line that is answered by a real person instead of an automated system. Students or their parents can call the number to add money to their card at any time, day or night.
“It works similar to a debit card,” Hauke said.
The card is run through a separate card reader at participating restaurants in order to pay for meals.
Students and their parents can choose between six meal plans, ranging from 35 meals for $239 to 266 meals for $1,684.
“Each meal has a value of six dollars and each half meal has a value of three dollars,” Hauke said. However, these values are only minimums, Hauke said, because many restaurants offer special deals and discounts to students who pay using OCMP.
“What our mission has been from the get-go is to provide a service that’s win-win for Eugene,” Hauke said.
The program should lead to increased convenience for students and parents, as well as increased business for local restaurants and the local economy, Hauke said.
The points do not roll over from semester to semester.
Hauke recommends students start the semester with a relatively small meal plan.
“You can always add on meals as the semester goes on,” Hauke said.
However, if students reach the end of the semester and still have points left on their cards, Hauke said they can probably be accommodated if they call the 24-hour line.
The company was founded in 1994 by David Diana, who got the idea while he was a student at the University of Massachusetts.
“He was dissatisfied with the services offered by the university for eating,” Hauke said.
Now, more than 10 years later, OCMP is a growing company.
“It was the first off-campus meal plan of this sort in the country,” Hauke said. “Currently we are at over 42 colleges and universities across the country.” Hauke said he is familiar with using OCMP, having been a customer while at the University of Massachusettes. Hauke said he called his mother early in his college career to ask for more money. He had been given money for food but spent it on other things. His mother refused to give him more money. However, she was willing to try out a new program in order to provide meals for her son.
“She got me OCMP,” Hauke said. “Then she didn’t have to worry about me blowing her money.”
The OCMP card put his mother’s mind at ease because it can only be used to buy food.
“I always had food to eat, and it was good food at good restaurants,” Hauke said. “I used it every single day for four years.”
Hauke doesn’t want OCMP to compete with on-campus dining programs.
“Most of the time we end up working with the universities,” Hauke said.
David Andersen, general manager of the Glenwood near campus, negotiated with OCMP in order to arrange the restaurant’s participation.
The process of getting the Glenwood set up to accept OCMP took several months because another company, the Off-Campus Dining Network, presented Andersen with a similar proposal.
“I had to try to decide the relative merits,” Hauke said. “In the end, the Off-Campus Meal Plan seemed more organized and ready to do business.”
OCMP takes a portion of the restaurant’s profits for each transaction run through its cards. Andersen hopes this fee will be off-set by increased patronage.
OCMP markets itself to students and parents, making them aware of the participating restaurants. This is especially helpful for the restaurants in the case of new students.
“They’re hitting a new town, and they’ve got a lot to learn,”
Andersen said. “The idea is before they get to Eugene, they’ve heard of the Glenwood.”
In the past, the Glenwood has primarily relied on print advertisements to draw students.
“We’ve always made efforts to make students aware of us, but this is a different program in that they came to us,” Andersen said.
Andersen has had to reconfigure the restaurant’s bookkeeping in order to keep track of the OCMP transactions.
“We’re committed to run (OCMP cards) through this school year,” Andersen said. “You have to give something time to get established.”
At the end of the school year, Andersen will re-evaluate to see whether the diminished profit on each transaction is worth the increased volume of business.
“We’ll just decide in June if we want to do it again next year,” Andersen said. “It’s an interesting experiment, and we’ll see how it works out.”
For more information on how to obtain an OCMP card, visit ocmp.com.

[email protected]