The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium will switch its food service contractor for the Wrangell Medical Center from NANA Management Services (NMS) to Aramark Corp.
The switch in providers, according to SEARHC marketing and communications director Lyndsey Schaefer, was a “business decision.”
SEARHC will officially transition from NMS to Aramark on Oct. 1. All 20 current NMS employees in Wrangell will be offered jobs with Aramark, Schaefer said last week.
NMS is an Alaska-based, Native-owned company that provides food and security services, as well as support to tribal entities and remote work camps. It began as a caterer for construction workers on the trans-Alaska pipeline in 1974.
Aramark is a global corporation, headquartered in Philadelphia. Like NMS, it provides facilities and food services. It has been listed among the Fortune 500’s largest employers.
Though NMS made national headlines this summer after an employee mistakenly served students at a Juneau elementary school floor sealant instead of milk, Schaefer said the incident did not prompt SEARHC’s move to switch providers.
Schaefer does not anticipate any interruptions in food service at SEARHC as Aramark takes over. “Patients will not know the difference,” she wrote in an email to the Sentinel.
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