Aramark

In the world of business, Sandi Berger is a flea among elephants. Berger runs the lobby shop in the Parkway office building that houses Reliance Insurance Co., whose parent had 1997 revenues of $3.4 billion. Now comes Aramark Corp., the $6.3 billion service giant known for its food operations at big-league stadiums and arenas. Aramark already runs Reliance's company cafeteria, and apparently it wants Berger's shop, too. Like anyone afoot in a land of giants, Berger fears getting lost - or squished - in the shuffle.

Few athletes would dare dine on Thai chicken satay, Russian borscht, Peking duck, Moroccan couscous, Greek moussaka, Spanish paella, Italian tiramisu and Georgia peach cobbler before a competition. But all's fair at the food table after events. And at an Olympic World Menu preview party hosted here May 6 by Aramark, the food service manager for the Olympic Games in Atlanta this summer. The tasting revealed a new look for the buffet in the Olympic Village Dining Room, from food station graphics to more personalized, finished-to-order dishes.

AS AN INMATE laborer at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility, Chal D. Kennedy Sr. worked in the kitchen, heating and serving meals for nearly 400 inmates and then cleaning up after them. That meant scrubbing down two giant ovens once or twice a week with a noxious degreaser that kept him coughing and left a sudsy sludge up his arms. "You look like you just came out from under an automobile," Kennedy, 46, of North Philadelphia, said of the two-hour, two-man cleanups. For the nearly three years he worked that $1.61-a-day job, prison staff ignored inmates' repeated requests for protective gear or training, he said.

Claude Feninger, 87, of Malvern, who built grand luxury hotels around the world for Hilton, Sheraton and Omni, died Sunday, April 28, of kidney disease at his home. Before his retirement in the early 1990s, Mr. Feninger was president of international operations for Aramark. His responsibilities included servicing the Olympic Games for many years. Throughout his career, Mr. Feninger brought European hotel luxury and services to the United States. On the world stage, he developed, constructed, arranged financing for, and created hotel operations at 85 properties on six continents.

Philadelphia-based food service giant Aramark said today it will eliminate all pork from animals bred using gestation crates in its U.S. supply chain by 2017. In announcing the plans with the Humane Society of the United States, Aramark joins dozens of other food service companies, restaurant chains and supermarkets that have pledged to end their reliance on suppliers who house breeding pigs in confining crates their whole lives. "Aramark is proud to stand in partnership with other industry leaders and supply chain partners to transition away from gestation crates in a timely fashion," said Kathy Cacciola, Aramark's senior director of environmental sustainability.

Seeing sales opportunities among ecstatic Flyers fans, Aramark will open four "team store outposts" to sell jerseys, Flyers souvenirs, and Stanley Cup merchandise. The Flyers beat the Montreal Canadiens in Game 5 of the National Hockey League Eastern Conference finals on Monday, ushering them into the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1997. The Flyers will play the Blackhawks for the Cup, beginning Saturday in Chicago. "This town is really excited," Ike Richman, spokesman for Comcast-Spectacor, said Tuesday.

When Camden's LEAP Academy University Charter School compelled its new food-service management company to retain the school's executive chef and give him a $24,000 raise, LEAP also had to pay a $151,428 penalty to its previous vendor, documents show. Including Michele Pastorello's new $95,000 salary, LEAP has spent nearly $250,000 this school year to keep him employed as executive chef. The position typically pays about $40,000, according to industry experts. Pastorello is the live-in boyfriend of LEAP founder and board chairwoman Gloria Bonilla-Santiago.

From the courtside Lexus Club to Victors fine-dining restaurant on the First Union Center's second level, it's evident that a revolution has taken place in arena concessions: Jumbo shrimp, crab cakes, freshly made roast beef sandwiches, gourmet french fries, specialty pretzels, cups of micro-brewed beer, and nachos. Mobile carts were strategically placed throughout the arena, and bartenders in club boxes were pouring beers and mixing alcoholic drinks. "When you walk into this facility, you want to eat," said Gail Clark, the Aramark Corp.

Arizona lettuce. New Zealand apples. Chilean peaches. Cheap and plentiful food from afar is a wonder of modern life. But it doesn't taste right to some consumers, who have begun demanding food from closer to home. University of Pennsylvania students Emma Kirwan and Rachel Meyer, for example, began working last fall with Aramark Corp. - one of the world's largest food-service providers - to get local foods on Penn's menu. "The world is just so disconnected from their food these days," said Kirwan, who grew up gardening with her mother in Connecticut.

An Aramark employee who becomes unable to work because of a physical disability is eligible to receive benefits until the age of 65 under the company's long-term disability plan. But an employee who becomes unable to work because of mental illness receives benefits for only two years. The federal government thinks that's unfair. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing Aramark, claiming its plan discriminates against people with mental disabilities. The suit also names Aetna Life Insurance Co., which administers the Philadelphia company's plan.