This fall, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) will have a new addition to the Lowenstein Café: Red Mango. This popular frozen yogurt chain will replace Freshens, the frozen yogurt and smoothie provider previously located across from Sodexo’s kitchen.

According to Brian Poteat, the general manager of food services for Fordham, Sodexo has been on the look out to improve the services for the students at Lincoln Center for the past three years.

“Over the past two or three years, Sodexo has been working with USG on surveys,” Poteat said. “We had an action plan for improvements to services at Lincoln Center. One of the things that kept coming up in all the surveys and the research we did is the need for a recognizable national brand on campus.”

Poteat said that originally, Sodexo thought of just adding a new food service to the lobby of Lowenstein before agreeing to include Red Mango in the cafeteria. However, there are no water and gas lines connected to that area for it to work.

Instead, Red Mango provided Sodexo with an alternative solution to Freshens. They offered to renew the former Freshens space with a new salad toss station and keeping the NY deli that shares the space. Sodexo accepted this offer and Red Mango is currently working on these improvements in the cafe.

“We knew that Red Mango was making an impact in the city and also started to show up in other college campuses,” Poteat said. “ We also consider it a better product – this is fresh fruit.  Freshens was frozen and was concentrated. We were looking for a more natural product and more in line with the profile that students are looking for these days.”

Red Mango offers customers core flavors of all-natural, nonfat frozen yogurt including Original, Pomegranate, Madagascar Vanilla and Mango. Their toppings include blueberries, strawberries, mango, dark chocolate chips, mochi and more. They also have 20 varieties of fruit smoothies and fruit parfaits.

As for the cost, Poteat said that the pricing structure is dictated by Red Mango and will not stray too much from Freshen’s pricing.

“You will be able to use your declining balance. As a Fordham student, you get a 5 percent discount,” Poteat said. “We will be doing things like frequency cards and giveaways.”

According to Poteat, Fordham will be in a yearly license agreement with Red Mango. The employees will be Sodexo employees but will be trained by Red Mango staff.

Students were enthusiastic with the addition of the chain on campus.

Jamie Marino, FCLC ’13, said “What is there to say about it? I love delicious frozen yogurt and I’m glad Fordham finally has something decent in the cafeteria. I can’t wait.”

Michelle Tam, FCLC ’13, agreed with this and said, “I’m honestly really looking forward to it because I’m interested in seeing how they’re going to do it.”

While some students are excited about the addition of Red Mango, some students are unsure.

Amy Bucknam, FCLC ’14, was a little hesitant to accept the change. “ I thought the Freshens smoothies were the thing our cafeteria had to offer, so I just hope this new company can do just as well, if not better.”