Who supplies the Winter Olympics’ food? Did you think that the host country supplies the food? Of course you thought that. Well, R&DE is supplying the 2022 Winter Olympics’ food. Where do you think all of the dry chicken went? Casper dining recently started serving fish and pork in preparation for making entrees for the Olympic Athletes.
To explain how R&DE obtained this job, let me introduce you to the competitive world of food preparation for the Olympics. It takes four years for the IOC, International Olympic Chefs, to find a food supplier for the IOC, International Olympic Committee. Three of those years are spent suing each other for copyright infringement; the IOC (the chef version) spends the other year finding the best food supplier.
During that year, food suppliers create a menu that they present to the IOC. The food supplier with the best menu becomes the official Olympic food supplier. This is the second highest honor for food suppliers. The highest honor is reserved for an even rarer and prestigious occasion: serving the Teletubbies’ kids (it’s a real job, look it up).
Of course, only one food supplier is chosen, so competition is fierce. Food suppliers send spies to other food suppliers’. Some food suppliers even force feed unsuspecting customers their entire menu, so they can receive feedback.
R&DE was not seen as competitive for a long time. Every food supplier knew that their chicken was dry, so no one sent spies. Long consigned to the loser’s bracket, R&DE came to the competition with an ace up its sleeve. Athlete dining. While normal Stanford students must continue to munch on the dining hall’s pestilent pollock, athletes are given different and better food. “Feeding Stanford athletes is just like feeding Olympians,” said an R&DE spokesperson. “Some Stanford athletes are even Olympians. The biggest difference is probably that Olympians don’t need electric bikes to get around.”
Anyway, R&DE became the supplier this year. They bribed the IOC with money from the stimmy checks and money from underpaying its employers.
But you can’t take the dry chicken out of R&DE; the athlete dining chefs had to prepare food for Stanford athletes, so R&DE sent other chefs. So far, their food hasn’t been a great hit in the Olympic Village. The grease infused chicken kebab caused an uproar on social media that was quickly deleted by State censors. Eileen Gu ’26 isn’t a fan of the fair either. “Stanford has been my dream school for as long as I can remember,” she said, “but this food makes me want to change loyalties and go somewhere else.”
