Carts come in to save the day as survey results prove AUC is still not happy with its food options in Kattameya
By- Mai Shams El-Din and Ingy Hassieb
Come lunchtime, at The American University in Cairo’s Kattameya campus, there is hardly any place to stand in line at El Omda, and Tabasco, as members of the AUC community cluster by the two food vendors offering the most generous meals necessary to re-charge for the remainder of an exhausting college day.
“We are getting carts,” said Kim Jackson, associate vice president of the office of student life and chair of the food services advisory committee. “Food carts.”
One year has passed since AUC moved to the new campus. Despite a set of disruptions in the academic environment, with bus schedules, Internet, and housing, administrators have worked tirelessly to handle them. Supplying food, particularly, was at the top of the list. Yet, complaints have been consistent and similar over the past year, and so plans to improve the services are still part of the current administrative agenda.
The location of food outlets was one of many concerns that 2300 members of the AUC community expressed in a food survey administered, last November, by the office of student life and the advisory committee.
“The food carts will add variety and place substantial food options down by [the Humanities and Social Sciences Building] and that end of campus so that people who mainly work from there don’t have to walk all the way up [to the food courts],” Jackson said. “Many people at the other end of campus complain about having to walk a way to get anything substantial to eat and then they come up here and the outlet is not even open.”
According to Heba Hassan, AUC project manager for Delicious Inc., the food service provider for the university, three of the carts have already been approved by the university and will start operating in the middle of the coming spring semester.
But, location is not the AUC community’s only issue.
“The food quality is really bad if you compare it to the amount of money we pay,” said Zeina Bisharat, a political science junior.
Both Jackson and Hassan said the preliminary results of the food survey show displeasure with the quality of the food in terms of both freshness and health, as well as the costs entailed and the operational hours.
“I usually have packed lunch from home. I only eat on campus if I am stuck” said journalism senior, Rania Nafei. “It is expensive and it is not healthy.”
The vendors, said Hassan, have costs to make up for such as rent and electricity among other things.
“The prices are the same outside of AUC, if not less. It is all costs and at the end of the day it is still a business for them,” she said. “But we want to help the students.”
The food carts would offer healthier food options, Hassan added, as one of the carts will serve fresh salads, and the other Lebanese food. The third cart has been signed off to GoGo Juice, which sells fresh fruit drinks and already occupies a space near the sports complex on campus.
“It feels like change has occurred slowly and not enough, but I can tell you, working with Delicious Inc, they really do try,” said Jackson. “They have been in a tough spot along with the rest of us and they have heard and are trying to address the concerns.”
A YEAR OF CHANGES
When the campus first opened, the only operational outlet had been Cilantro coffee, but now, most people eat on campus “at least once a day,” according to the food survey responses.
“The people providing food for us are exploiting us because they use the fact that there are no other food outlets to their advantage,” said Bisharat.
Many students agreed that, at the moment, Tabasco and El Omda are the best available.
“Tabasco is good and the prices aren’t that expensive,” said Amr Sammak, architecture senior. “[El Omda] is clean for foul, ta’ameya and Koshary. It’s cheap and it’s filling.”
Nafei said that Tabasco is her best option.
“I think they’re the cleanest, or at least they appear to be,” she said. “The salads are always clean and the vegetables are always fresh. I trust them more than El Omda.”
On the other hand, Bisharat finds the outlet too pricey for a student budget.
“Why are they so obsessed with brands like McDonald’s and Subway? They get DVDs to put in Quick and sometimes you can’t even find the basic necessities like bread and vegetables,” she said.
Karim Elhassan, a sophomore who lives in the on-campus dormitories, cooks his own food but does not buy his groceries from Quick 24, the only supermarket available on campus.
“I buy my food from Spinney’s and cook in the dorms,” he said. “All of the products [at Quick] are imported and are very high-priced.”
THE HOURS
“Operation hours are not good at all,” said Sammak, who participated in the food survey. ”There’s no variety because everything closes at 6 PM except Tabasco.”
The issue, though, is yet to be addressed.
“Once the Institutional Research office compiles the final report I will send that to the president and the vice president and call for another meeting,” Jackson said. “All along there has been ten people telling the university and Delicious these issues, but now we have 2300 people saying it. So I’m hoping that will underscore the urgency to address these issues.”
The preliminary results were made public to the AUC community through the Dec. 13 issue of the weekly newsletter, Road 90, and the report will be finalized during the winter session.
“[The office of Institutional Research] tallied all responses for the food survey, but they also tallied the responses that people wrote in the end when they ask you if there’s anything else you want to say–well it was 79 pages full of comments,” she said.
