Elevating campus food culture, one change at a time

When Zia Ahmed, senior director of dining services at The Ohio State University (OSU), envisions the campus food of the future, he sees nothing but possibility. Since he took the position in 2010, OSU has established itself as a hub for food innovation and sustainability, one project at a time.

This year, eating on the fly got a makeover. Based on student focus groups, the OSU dining team expanded its grab-and-go options, creating new bento-inspired meals and snacks.

Students can now pick up a to-go version of a hummus platter, for instance, with elements broken out into the neat compartments emblematic of the Japanese boxed lunch. They can also grab fun, fruit-centered snacks, such as a strawberry Nutella cup or a single serving of curried chickpea salad.

The changes are driven by student demand and observable campus trends. But the dining team is also guided by its own unifying goals, such as pursuing sustainable, local sourcing, staying ahead of customer expectations and expanding student palates. 

“How do we encourage 80 percent of students to try something new?” Ahmed asks.

For a campus with 17,000 students registered for meal plans, it’s a big question. His answer: “We lead with something they’re familiar with.”

He’s referring to their spins on global cuisine that are popping up on campus. New concepts and dishes replace elements of familiar meals with an equivalent from another culture, encouraging students to embrace novel flavors.

Healthy Buckeye 2017-18. (Lauren Ando / Office of Student Life / Ohio State University).

They introduced Korean cuisine through Korean-style barbecue, for example, since barbecue is already a popular meal choice. At a brand-new fusion taco station, they serve Brazilian-style meat, such as chicken marinated in a chipotle adobo sauce and slow-roasted on a churrascaria.

Dreaming up combinations like these is an indispensable skill on campus, Ahmed says, but he also believes fusion cuisine is important for the future of food, so people can continue to create and discover new flavors 

“Food is like technology,” he says. “There’s no end to innovation.” 

But flavor combinations are just one part of the OSU dining story. 

In 2016, they made a commitment to source 40 percent of their food from local and sustainable sources by 2025, first from producers within a 50-mile radius of the main campus in Columbus, then from Ohio businesses and those in the wider region. 

Dining services already partners with a variety of local businesses and sends staff members to visit producers and production facilities in the area, to help form strong connections in the community and inspire enthusiasm among the staff.

They work with vegetable farms and producers of dairy, pork, chicken and beef. They also buy local products such as bread, pepperoni, dips, salad dressing, potato chips and ice cream. 

The Dannon yogurt in their Greek yogurt panna cotta, a new grab-and-go item, is made with 90 percent Ohio-produced milk. Salads and sandwiches incorporate as much local produce as possible, including some vegetables from OSU’s three-acre student farm. 

All fresh chicken served on campus is produced in Kidron, located just two hours from Columbus. And as of last year, all chicken nuggets served on campus are breaded by a family-run operation in another Ohio town. 

By sourcing ingredients in a popular product locally (the chicken nugget is the most-consumed item on campus) the university is not only taking steps toward its 40-percent goal, but also buoying neighboring businesses. It’s a microcosm of the role dining services would like to play in the food system, both on campus and in the wider region. 

“We’re excited to be contributing to the local community,” Ahmed says. “We want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can with our knowledge and our power to contribute to a sustainable food system.” 

To that end, nearly 100 percent of the fish served on campus will be sustainably sourced this year, with an increased focus on domestic species that are abundant but typically exported, such Acadian redfish. 

As for other non-local products, they already source coffee from trusted sources and have relationships with coffee farmers throughout Central America. In 2010, they opened their first “transparent” coffee shop, where the origin of the coffee beans was made clear to customers—and celebrated. Today, “nearly all the coffee served on campus is traceable to its source.”

Ahmed is proud of their accomplishments and says one of their next steps will be to explore storytelling through technology in order to educate students about local and sustainable food. It’s all part of one big picture. “Sustainability is no longer a strategy at Ohio State University,” he says. “Sustainability is part of our culture.”