INTRODUCTION To accurately identify what questions to ask stakeholders in the college and university student dining equation, it was important to first gain insights from knowledgeable stakeholders in terms of what is known, what is unknown, and where they envision their dining program in the future. For those reasons, qualitative measures in which in-depth and detailed information is gathered were identified as the best means for data collection. Focus groups are one mode of qualitative data collection that allows for individuals to build from the ideas of others, so they were conducted as a means of preliminary data collection. Participants consisted of the project's advisory board members as well as other industry experts. The focus groups yielded valuable information, sectioned below into the most important themes to emerge from the data collection and discussions. METHODOLOGY Data Collection NACUFS identified individuals best positioned to contribute meaningfully to a focus group. Those participants were then invited to participate in one of six one-hour focus group sessions. There were initially three focus groups planned, but three more were added to ensure data saturation. Each focus group had between four and six participants. The next section outlines the questions that guided the focus groups, followed by the results. 7