By Andrea Garrison, Contributing Writer

Sodexo’s new app is now available for West Liberty University’s Marketplace customers. Bite by Sodexo helps students keep track of the nutritional information of the foods they eat in the Marketplace. The app recently uploaded the data from West Liberty’s Marketplace at the beginning the spring semester, just in time for many New Year’s resolutions to eat healthier.

Bite by Sodexo includes a categorized list of most foods served in the Marketplace for each meal and allows users to see nutritional information, serving sizes, descriptions of items, and lists of ingredients that are common food allergies. The number of minutes remaining in each dining period (breakfast, lunch, or dinner) is also given. After downloading the app, the user must enter a code in order to retrieve the Marketplace data. WLU’s Marketplace code is M2759.

Doug Orr, general manager of Sodexo at West Liberty, said, “I think the biggest benefit is our customers can plan their daily food nutrition intake from their phones.” The application also allows users to add foods to a favorites list and submit reviews for individual food items and overall service of the Marketplace.

West Liberty freshman, Danielle Cook, says, “I use Bite to plan out how many calories I will be eating at each meal in the Marketplace.”

Another feature that may interest some users is the ‘Log to Fitbit’ button. This button allows users to link their Bite by Sodexo app to their Fitbit account. Once connected, anytime a user clicks the ‘Log to Fitbit’ button, the nutritional information of a food on Bite by Sodexo will transfer to Fitbit.

Currently, Bite by Sodexo only includes foods in the Marketplace, but nutritional information is not included for every single food served at each meal. Locations in the College Union are not part of the app; however, Orr says, “We are working to build the data base for the retail restaurants and plan a conversion of the data over the summer.”

Bite by Sodexo is a free application and is available for both Apple and Android users.