On-campus residents can now spend meal points online to purchase groceries through a new food service called Earl’s: The Online Experience!, also known as OLE!

Once purchased, the items, which range from shampoo to a case of frappuccino, are available for pickup on Saturdays at the OLE! depot near Earl’s Place in Earl Warren College. One hundred and sixty-eight products are currently for sale, with plans to eventually increase that number by adding other options, such as vegan or kosher foods.

Most food will be sold in bulk packaging, with prices higher than those at Ralph’s, yet lower than Earl’s Place.

“”You can buy water bottles in bulk instead of having to buy them bottle by bottle at Earl’s place,”” said Grace Siu, a Warren college sophomore living on campus. “”It’s more efficient.””

Other students like OLE! because it helps them better use up otherwise unspent meal points.

“”It’s a good idea,”” said Tina Chen, a Warren college sophomore. “”People … have a lot of meal points left at the end of the year so they’d buy a bunch of stuff in bulk.””

Dining Services Manager Michael Weinreich emphasized that the new service is still in its initial stages and input from students is needed.

“”Earl’s Place did nothing but take suggestions for the whole first year,”” Weinreich said. “”The store was created with suggestions from customers.””

Only students with meal plans may purchase goods using OLE!; TritonPlus is not accepted. Earl’s Place was chosen as the pickup site because of the staff’s familiarity with the packaged goods business. Earl’s Place already deals with ordering and receiving products similar to those sold on OLE!.

Controversy arose last school year when Housing and Dining Services announced its plan to make meal plans mandatory for students living on campus.

OLE! is seen by some as a potential way help for on-campus apartment residents feel more comfortable with their mandatory $1,800 meal plans. Some had objected to requiring a meal plan for students living in apartments with kitchens.

“”Now that people who live in apartments are forced to have a meal plan, this is a good way for them to spend their meal points,”” said Everly Mariano, a sophomore at Warren college. “”If they want to cook their own food instead of going to the dining halls, they can do that.””

Though it is impossible to anticipate demand for OLE!, Weinreich said that Earl’s Place, which also sells some groceries, had 5,200 customers last year — an increase of 50 percent over the previous year. An extension to the Earl’s Place building was built in the past few months to accommodate pickups for OLE!

OLE! was not designed specifically to pacify on-campus apartment dwellers, Weinreich said.

“”[The service] is something that had been talked about for a long time, and not tied to the ‘One-rate’ plan,”” he said.

The service will help Housing and Dining “”do a more complete job for all of [its] customers.””

OLE! is located on the World Wide Web at http://ole.ucsd.edu.