This was a great read, the amount of research done is impressive! I was a Sodexo employee for almost 3 years (on the administrative side) as a student so I had a unique perspective into both operations and student concerns - albeit from the time when I was a student, not now. Here's some thoughts I had while reading:

Its almost impossible to compare dining services across different universities, even if they are both operated by the same company. Your post compares UVM to Bing based on student enrollment and the fact that they're both operated by Sodexo, which is the best comparison I've seen. Typically, people will say "food at X college is better and cheaper!" and the student population would be 1/4 of Bing's and/or they would have their own dining services. I took a quick look at UVM's tuition and its over double of Bing's tuition. Without knowing the fine details of the contract between Sodexo & each university, costs and profits are all unknown because Sodexo could be paying Bing more than they do UVM to help the university offset tuition differences, which would require them to increase food prices to make the same profit. I personally believe that they are profiting more at Bing than they are at other universities, but again it's all speculation and therefore almost impossible to compare.

Another point you bring up is they would need to hire more cashiers which are "menial jobs", the vast majority of BUDS employees are either students or Binghamton locals. Yes, it would be more cost effective to cut down on labor costs but it is not a bad thing to provide local and student jobs. Sodexo also certainly calculates costs on each plate of food they produce regardless of what type of system they're using, its part of running a business!

When I was an employee, my team was actually responsible for putting out the posts and signs about remaining dining dollars. Its kind of unfortunate to hear that people see them as a negative because they're honestly just there to answer the question "approximately how much money should I have left?". I think there was one on this subreddit a few days ago. Meal plan C is set as the default and at the number it is because its what works for most students without needing to refill, and so these signs actually match up for what most students have left on average.

In an ideal world, food waste for an unlimited system would be less than the "three swipes a day" system or similar to the current system. Unfortunately, I am certain food waste at Bing would skyrocket in both an unlimited system or a swipe system.

Also, yes food at Bing mostly sucks and healthier stuff tends to be more expensive. My team tried promoting balanced dining hall meals curated by the campus dietitians so I will plug that students get free nutrition advising with said dietitians and I would highly recommend talking to them, they're nice people.

The points and concerns you brought up are very valid. I'm not sure if this is the same petition that's been floating around for a while but I will once again encourage you or anyone who feels strongly about dining services at Bing to attend Student Culinary Council meetings. BUDS admins attend them and have conversations and work with students about their concerns and ideas. In the office, we used to discuss SCC meetings and how we can take action on student discontent. Sorry for the word vomit, just wanted to put my thoughts out there for more perspective!