What does Trojan Grains offer?

The life of a typical college student is filled with class, parties, and extracurricular activities. Regular meals and healthy eating tend to get lost in their erratic schedules often leading to fatigue, which is the last thing a Trojan needs. Trojan Grains, the creation of a few hungry USC students, is a convenient and healthy café that would serve the nutritional needs of the typical college student, faculty, and staff.

Our Mission

Our mission is to provide USC students, faculty, and staff with a convenient, healthy, made-to-order breakfast experience.  We recognized that college students, hampered by busy morning schedules and the need to maximize sleep, many neglect breakfast and skip it entirely.  Our goal is to cater to this issue by giving students a quick and healthy alternative for the on the go breakfast consumer.

USC, with an undergraduate student population of over 15,000, is an underserved breakfast population.  With the demands of college and the balance of social life being a constant battle, sometimes priorities on good eating habits diminish.  There are many restaurants on and around the USC campus as well as several dining halls.  These establishments are excellent for lunch and dinner, but their service is too slow for students in need of a quick breakfast before class.  The only places to get something on the go are fast food restaurants, which are notorious for offering food high in fat content.  This is where Trojan Grains aims to offer a great alternative to what currently exists in the USC area.

How Trojan Grains Started

While Nikolaos Cangemi and Edsel Hamilton worked with the REDACTED, the two found that when working early, midday, or even late night they both shared the same passion for a bowl of cereal.  On a morning before a REDACTED meeting, the two met up early to have breakfast.  Both Edsel and Nikolaos settled on eating at REDACTED’s.  Disappointed to find that cereal was not on the menu and that the rest of the menu was not health conscious oriented, the two mused about the concept of a health oriented on the go breakfast restaurant for the surrounding area.  In later discussions, Edsel and Nikolaos decided to bring this idea to USC friends: Angela Lee, Thomas Aldrich, and Ze Zhang.  When Edsel and Nikolaos brought the idea to their friends, they were immediately interested in such an idea because of their shared difficulty in finding a quick easy healthy breakfast experience for themselves.   The five friends and founders together decided to create a business.  While the USC area is fortunate to have many amenities available and accessible, they thought it was important to create a business that can satisfy the needs and wants in a beneficial and efficient way.  The friends decided to create this organization and its products because breakfast, despite being scientifically supported for its importance, is the most ignored meal of the day.  By opening a breakfast facility with easy, convenient and tasty breakfast options, they believe it is possible to create encouragement and an emphasis for students to eat breakfast.  Moreover, the convenience provided by the to go accessibility will allow students to bring the food to class without being late, take it with them while they ride the tram, or even enjoy a short breakfast on campus while reviewing notes for an exam.

Importance of Breakfast

Nowadays it is quite common to see students and professors, snacking on food while walking to and from class.  Even the dynamics of a classroom environment has changed greatly today.  Students utilize class time not only to take notes but to eat as they listen to their lecture.  All types of on the go edibles have emerged into the campus and classroom environment in large variety except for breakfast. 

Research has repeatedly shown breakfast as the most crucial meal of the day. A proper and wholesome breakfast refuels the body for the activities of the day and lessens the likelihood for indulgence in high calorie snacks. In fact, research studies done by the National Institutes of Healthy have shown a link between young adults’ consistent breakfast habits and better performance in school. Other studies have shown that eating breakfast.

Unfortunately, the USC area does not have any healthy and convenient breakfast venues. At Trojan Grains, with a large variety of on-the-go breakfast items, we allow students to custom create cereal, a childhood breakfast staple, with dozens of brand name cereals just waiting to be combined.  This is the heart of our morning experience, where you can create your own cereal mix with two scoops of cereal, one topping and milk, at a student friendly price.  This section of the menu includes specialty mixes, both cold and hot with toppings ranging from gummy worms to chocolate to fruits and nuts.  In addition to the cereal bar, we will have smoothies, baked goods, and parfaits.  Our specialty items will boast fresh baked cereal bars and snack mixes, smoothies with a combination of cereal yogurt and fruit, as well as made to order parfaits with every ingredient being a personal choice.

Location

The restaurant will be next to Trojan Grounds and across from Leavey Library, where a large percentage of students pass by or spend time on a daily basis.  As a result of the restaurant occupying university property, Trojan Grains will accept discretionary dollars, dining dollars, cash, and credit cards, to be consistent with other dining facilities on campus.  Additionally, Trojan Grains will offer special discounts as well as customized frequent-dining options for regular customers.choice.

Trojan Grains Breakfast Process

The key to our quick service is our assembly line process.  When the customer gives their order, a “Grain Surgeon” (employee) mixes the requested cereals. The next Grain Surgeon then applies the toppings as requested by the customer. Lastly, the customer is rung up at the register.  From this point, the customer can then take their cereal to the milk machine where they have the option of seven different types of milk ranging from different percentages to chocolate milk and even lactose free. On average the whole experience lasts three minutes for each customers order, getting them in and out in a timely fashion.  In addition to bringing quick service, our location will also foster the convenience ideal.  Having this business on campus will make it easier for students to manage time while getting a healthy meal, and still making it to class on time.

In offering this efficient service to students, our priorities lie in making this experience quick enjoyable and above all else healthy. Trojan Grains stops at no end to deliver the healthiest breakfast alternative possible. Our menu includes all the “best breakfast options” recommended by the USDA. Each cereal offered contains less than 120 calories per serving. Thus, Trojan Grains provides customers with the best and healthiest breakfast option without compromising tastiness or convenience.

Because of the nature of the bar style service, it is important that Trojan Grains stays committed to catering to the wants and needs of the individual patron.  Throughout our practice, Trojan Grains will continue to change and evolve based on customer-expressed needs.  For every item or service that isn’t provided yet requested, the management will look into providing for that need if at all feasible.  The USC student population will be our attempt at providing such a service.  Nikolaos, Edsel, Angela, Ze, and Tom felt that then need for a quick healthy breakfast option at USC coupled with the diverse student body would be a great site to launch a flag ship restaurant.   If Trojan Grains is optimistic that if it can meet the demands of such a busy and diverse market, entering other regions and markets will be quite successful.

Why USC?