The associate vice president of Student Life recommended that UNM not renew its contract with Aramark.
Walter Miller said no decision has been made on which company will receive the new contract. But he said he will not recommend Aramark.
The Board of Regents will make a final decision on the contract at its March 12 meeting.
Aramark is an international company that provides food service to large venues such as schools and prisons. The company's eight-year contract with UNM will be up for renewal in April.
Student groups have rallied in opposition of Aramark, saying the company doesn't offer healthy food and treats its employees poorly.
GPSA voted against renewing Aramark's contract during a special session Feb. 21.
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Regent Jack Fortner said he expected the recommendations of GPSA and Miller would influence the regents.
"The students are the ones that primarily eat the food, and so I think we'd listen to them," he said. "And I think Walt probably listened to them also."
Miller said his committee had to decide between the proposals of three companies: Aramark, Chartwells and Sedexo. The committee elected to go with Chartwells, he said.
"We made a decision to try to enter a quality plan with another company," he said. "But it has to get through some steps before I can say that it's a final contract or even a contract, because nothing has been drafted up yet."
Miller said the committee selected Chartwells through a blind process, where the companies' names are omitted and members pick a company based only on its proposal.
"We surveyed students, faculty and staff last spring to help us guide what we were really going to be looking for in a provider," he said. "Then we also had focus groups last spring to kind of give us input."
A representative of Aramark was not available for comment.
Miller said the focus groups discovered that wellness and healthy eating options were students' tops concerns. The issue of sustainability was also a high priority, he said.
ASUNM President Ashley Fate was on the committee that selected Chartwells.
"The way that (Chartwells) put students first was really impressive, and we were trying not to compare the negatives or Aramark," she said. "We were trying to work on focusing on the positives."
Fate said she liked the way Chartwells was willing to let students bring outside food into the SUB.
"Things like that were really impressive to us," she said. "And this company went above and beyond to show how important their primary stakeholder was and that they would go out of our way to satisfy to us."
