Food

Chartwells, our catering contractor, has a target to remove ten single-use plastics from their food service operations by the end of 2020. Currently nine of these items, including plastic stirrers, straws and sauce packets have been removed from BU.

Chartwells has also achieved the Food For Life 'Silver' Standard, which displays Chartwells commitment to, and delivery of, three key areas: • Ingredient standards by ensuring higher animal welfare standards and ethically-produced ingredients, certified by a range of organisations including Free Range, Red Tractor, Fairtrade Foundation, MSC and the RSPCA • Good practice by sourcing local and seasonal produce, monitoring food waste and freshly preparing food. • Customer care to make healthy eating easier for customers, by offering food catering to for a range of dietary restrictions and marketing positively. Making coffee matter Both Chartwells and SUBU apply a coffee cup tax to encourage the use of reusable mugs on our campuses. SUBU has also introduced 'Change Please' coffee into Dylans Bar, which means every cup sold is supporting homeless people to get back into work. BU and SUBU have had Fairtrade status for over 12 years and have recently signed up to the Fairtrade Foundation and NUS University and College award. The Fairtrade Steering Group is responsible for overseeing the implementation of the Fairtrade Policy and for inspiring staff and students to support Fairtrade making coffee matter.

Living Labs: Blitzer pots

Alice Evans, a BSc Nutrition student, completed her placement with the Chartwells team to create a new selection of vegan products. After generating ideas, developing recipes and creating marketing, Alice's diverse and nutritious vegan salad boxes and 'Blitzer pots' have not only been introduced across BU, but nationally. "This placement was a brilliant opportunity to not only practice the product development skills learnt on my course but to also learn so many new technical skills that I’m excited to use in my future career. The whole process was very rewarding, especially because the final range of salads and ‘Blitzer pots’ are available to buy and enjoy.