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With addition of sushi to Combo-X-Change, workers prepare food long into night

March 26, 2015
<p>Okemos resident Bone Soe packages sushi March 26, 2015, in the kitchen at McDonel Hall on East Shaw Lane. The Sushi with Gusto employees work from 12 a.m. to 7 a.m. to provide sushi for students. Hannah Levy/The State News</p>

Okemos resident Bone Soe packages sushi March 26, 2015, in the kitchen at McDonel Hall on East Shaw Lane. The Sushi with Gusto employees work from 12 a.m. to 7 a.m. to provide sushi for students. Hannah Levy/The State News

Photo by Hannah Levy | The State News

They’re preparing and packaging nearly 800 boxes of sushi for most Sparty’s locations on campus — and it has been a hit new item since it was introduced to a few locations in January and then transitioned across campus, Culinary Services marketing manager Cheryl Berry said.

The workers, all Myanmarese immigrants, labor from 9 p.m. until nearly 6:30 a.m. Sunday through Thursday to prepare fresh sushi for students and faculty to buy at the university convenience stores, Sushi with Gusto chef Tun Aung said.

Sushi with Gusto, which is partnered with MSU, is a corporate sushi chain based out of South Carolina that trains and implements sushi workers to labor at supermarkets and universities across the country.

The increasing number of international students, along with positive student feedback to the idea, sparked the decision to bring on-the-go packages of sushi to Sparty's, Berry said.

The sushi selections at Sparty’s, which range from $3.99 to $6.99 or use up the B and C Combo-X-Change option, include eight varieties and range from the staple California roll to a newly-crafted MSU roll, which was conceived by the company’s executive chef and features tempura shrimp with cream cheese, spicy crab sauce, masago and sesame seed, Sushi with Gusto operations manager Aya Tamaru said.

“It’s something that he just created (for MSU),” Tamaru said. “It’s not really green.”

But what the selections don’t include is raw fish, a sushi staple, which Aung, in his four years of being in the U.S. and almost all of them prepping sushi, said he misses working with.

Along with customer interaction, it’s another feature lacking for the all-night workers.

At Sushi with Gusto operations within other universities, the workers prepare and provide the product to customers in a sushi bar setting, dining services complex manager Lary Tarnowski said.

But at MSU, because of the desire to bring sushi to most Sparty’s stores, Sushi with Gusto adopted a mass-distribution style sushi production — a first for them, Tarnowski said.

Although sushi isn’t traditional to Myanmar, Aung said he dreams of opening a large sushi bar — after working at a McDonald’s and then a window glass factory, preparing sushi were the last two jobs he’s had.

Aung brought his wife and son to the U.S. from Myanmar after winning the diversity immigrant visa lottery, a U.S. Department of State drawing that allows nearly 50,000 people per year to immigrate to the U.S. per year, he said.

When Sushi with Gusto transferred him to MSU he was teamed with fellow Myanmar nationals.

Aung said he hoped to find more Myanmarese people in the area but dismissed the thought of meeting with students who are fellow nationals, as they operate on entirely different hours.

“We’re working at night,” Aung said. “They’ll be at day times. Different hours. So we cannot meet.”

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