But University College executive chef Colin Lang and his catering team take up the challenge year after year.
He has worked at the University of Otago college for eight years after a career in kitchens in New Zealand and abroad.
"I had an interest in cooking from an early age," he said.
High-end London hotels, including Inn on the Park and Hilton on Park Lane, may seem a far cry from a university college, but Mr Lang argues they are not that much different.
"You might say it's not fine dining, but we buy the same ingredients as what the restaurants do, but we are not charging $30 a main."
His 30 staff also had to provide much more variety than the average restaurant, which often maintained the same menu year round.
"We have to change it every day. We have to have so much variety."
The college menu ran on a six-week roster, which changed with the seasons, and planning was done by the college catering team, which oversaw kitchens in six of the university's colleges.
"Finding a nutritional balance between the likes and dislikes of more than 500 teenage residents from diverse range of backgrounds is always a challenge," Mr Lang said.
Breakfast, which runs from 7am to 9.30am, is a continental buffet, except for Sunday when it is a full cooked brunch.
Lunch runs from noon to 1.30pm and dinner 5pm to 6.30pm. Both are buffet style, consisting generally of two main options, vegetarian, salad, vegetables and fruit selections, plus dessert.
From 7pm to 11pm a cafe is run on site, serving coffee and food such as paninis and ice-cream.
"There are a lot of people in the college and everybody gets the munchies late at night."
Special dietary requirements, such as vegetarian, gluten-free, dairy free and halal, were also met.
"When I trained as a chef there was no such thing as vegetarian.
"But you just can't do that in this day and age. You have to look after your clients," he said.
Several plated formal dinners and theme nights were also run during the year, including the annual college birthday party at which fairy bread, cheerios and lollies "bring out the smiles".
Favourite meals for the students varied each year, but pizza, butter chicken, steak, and Thai chicken and prawns were always popular, as were green lip mussels and the classic Sunday roast.
However, there were also "complaints and a lot of opinions" shared about the meals.
The college ran regular food service meetings and students "have the opportunity of the comments box, and that can be open slather".
"But if we know something is wrong, we can fix it."
The food was never considered bad enough, though, to be used in food fights which were "something of the past".
"It always surprises me how well behaved the residents are in the dining room, but a lot of that goes to how well the college is run," he said.
Things, however, do not always go that smoothly in the kitchen.
One memorable story was "the time somebody sprinkled baking soda instead of icing sugar over the numerous trays of sponge pudding . . . it tastes like soap".
Because the college was run like a business, out-of-term time was spent catering for functions, weddings and banquets.
Mr Lang's team had "hit the ground running" this week and was looking forward to getting into the rhythm of the university year.
"For me it is a joy," he said.
Unicol executive chef
Colin Lang
Quantities of food ordered per year for University College residents:
• 24 tonnes of fresh fruit, the weight of 19 average cars.
• 27 tonnes of fresh vegetables, the weight of 120 Harley-Davidsons.
• 21,500 loaves of bread, the slices of which, end to end, would stretch 4km.
• 40,000 litres of milk, enough to fill a domestic swimming pool.
Menu
Breakfast
Yoghurt, spreads, fruit, porridge, cereal.
Lunch
Garlic pasta, garlic, bacon and tomato sauce, roasted vegetable pasta sauce, coleslaw, tossed salad, rainbow salad, marshmallow slice, fruit pieces.
Dinner
Hawaiian pizza, apricot feta pizza, shoestring fries, Indonesian rice salad, tossed salad, fresh fruit salad, whipped cream, fruit pieces.
