Mohamed Ali, the third of four candidates for ISU Dining director, participated in an open forum 11 a.m. Thursday in the Gold Room of the Memorial Union.

Meeting with everyone individually before his presentation, Ali spoke to a room of about 20 people.

Having 24 years of food industry management experience under his belt, Ali is the director of auxiliaries’ operations at Ohio State University. Ali currently oversees 17 retail dining locations and four regional dining facilities.

Beginning his presentation, Ali spoke about how one of the things he has learned throughout the years is to focus on the quality of food. 

Ali then discussed the three trends that he intends to keep at Iowa State. These included buying local, product development training and collaborative partnerships.

A plan of action that Ali hopes to introduce, however, is maximizing local food sources, utilizing organic food whenever possible, using more grains and plant-based foods and re-examining the role of prime vendors.

“Organic food is getting less and less expensive,” Ali said.

Ali would like to make the food friendlier to those who may have dietary restrictions, such as vegans or vegetarians, or have a religiously restricted diet.

On product development and training, Ali stated that he would like to centralize recipe development through processing and labeling by making sure ingredients and nutrition information is made available to students. 

He would also like to provide more in-depth training and to create a culture of culinary excellence.

Another focus of Ali’s was to provide more collaborative partnerships. He would accomplish this by establishing working relationships with local and regional schools by sharing experiences and pooling resources and by working with other university departments to enhance the local community partnership.

Ali stated that he believes in being upfront because it a system that works best.

“We all have the same mission,” said Ali. One of the major points that Ali hit was to have a focus on financial performance.

Speaking on some ways that he had introduced partnerships back at Ohio, Ali discussed how the university had worked with student government when it came to dining, along with having monthly student critiques.

Following Ali’s presentation, the forum allotted a 15-minute question and answer session.

John Gaughan, the last candidate, will have his open forum at 11 a.m. Friday in the Cardinal Room.