Metro

Columbia students costing college $5,000 a week for Nutella at campus dining halls

Columbia students are addicted to Nutella — and are feeding a $5,000-a-week habit.

Students have been going through 100 pounds — a day! — of the hazelnut-chocolate spread since the university started offering it at campus dining halls.

Demand “has been greater than originally expected,” Vicki Dunn, executive director of Columbia Dining Services told the Columbia Spectator newspaper.

No one expected the Ivy Leaguers to wolf down the snack at the rate of what could cost $260,000 a year.

The problem is that undergrads are not just filling up while in the cafeterias. They’s pilfering it to eat elsewhere.

“Students have been filling cups of Nutella to-go in Ferris Booth Commons,” one of the campus eateries, Dunn said. “And taking the full jars out of John Jay [dining hall], which means we’re going through product faster than anticipated.”

The two dining halls accommodate upwards of 5,000 students per day. But 100 pounds is still an awful lot of Nutella.

Columbia students pay a steep $2,363 a semester to eat in the halls, and that may account for their willingness to walk away with the addictive topping.

“When you’re paying that much for a dining plan, some people feel a bit more entitled to taking things from the dining hall,” Columbia College Student Council representative Peter Bailinson told the Columbia Spectator.

Officials fear that instead of eating what they’ve walked off with, some students let it go to waste.

Bailinson said that students don’t realize that campus dining officials use the money “to get awesome new items like Nutella, almond butter,” and to make renovations.

Getting rid of Nutella is not under consideration, but campus dining officials are reluctant to introduce new items, like lobster tails, the Spectator said.

“People love their Nutella,” freshman Charles Sanky told the student paper. “People are going to go crazy, I’m not surprised.”