Since the fall semester of 1996, Iowa State has produced its own cakes and cookies for the dining centers as well as for catered events.

Stewart Burger, associate director of the residence department, said the ISU bakery, located in the Knapp-Storms facility, grew out of the need to find an alternative to having a small bakery in each dining center.

“We had three options,” Burger said. “We could leave [the bakeries] as is, combine them into one, or stop baking all together. It became harder and harder financially to keep them running [in each dining center].”

The decision was made to consolidate all the bakeries into one.

Burger said the bakery was able to reduce costs, as well as the number of bakers. Despite the cost-cutting, he said the bakery does not generate revenue.

“It is more a support mechanism for the dining service than anything,” Burger said. “The goal of this bakery was to provide better baked items more efficiently and to have them on the menu more frequently.”

In addition to providing baked goods to about 7,000 people, the bakery frequently does catering, said Karen Larson, manager of Knapp-Storms Dining Service.

“A lot of the baked products are more consistent, better products [than we could buy],” she said.

By the year 2001 or 2002, Burger said he hopes to move the bakery to Friley Hall, following the construction of a new dining center in the Union Drive Association.

“There, we could provide the sale of fresh baked goods and coffee,” he said.

Larson said she is in favor of this move.

“Right now we are maxed-out for space,” she said. “It would be great because we would be closer to central campus and more accessible to the public.”