Columbia University on Thursday issued what a spokesman called “a tongue-in-cheek university statement†about the cost of Nutella that students have been eating in â€" or stealing from â€" campus dining halls.
“Nutella-gate Exposed,†the statement said. “It’s a Smear!â€
The statement said Nutella was not costing Columbia $5,000 a week, as many outlets, including this one, had reported. That figure had been cited by a member of the Columbia College Student Council, Peter Bailinson, who said he got it from the executie director of the university’s Dining Services, Vicki Dunn. He said the $5,000 figure covered only one week last month, the first week in which Nutella was available in dining halls every day. (Until then, it had mainly been served in crepes on weekends.)
Mr. Bailinson said Ms. Dunn had told him that students had run through 100 pounds of Nutella a day. The Columbia Spectator quoted her as saying that Dining Services was “going through product faster than anticipated†because students were filling cups with Nutella in one dining hall and taking “full jars†from another.
The Spectator speculated that Dining Services could spend $250,000 on Nutella in one year.
Columbia, which had declined to comment on the Nutella situation on Wednesday, said in its statement Thursday that “the ongoing weekly cost of Nutella supply is actually less than one-! tenth the purported amount originally reported on a student blog and quickly picked up by other media.â€
“It is true that in the first three-four days after Nutella was recently added to the dining hall selections,†the statement said, “demand was indeed extraordinarily high.â€
But the statement, first published Thursday by The Spectator, said “the actual cost was only about $2,500, and quickly went down to $450 per week for dining halls that serve some 3,600 students, seven days a week at three locations.â€
The statement also said that “media attention to Nutella-gate has cut down on the amount people have been taking in recent days.â€
