Food

This has been an incredibly difficult year for both Chartwells and SUBU food outlets. However, prior to lockdown, we had made great progress in providing environmentally-friendly food offers and practice.

Our Sustainable Food Policy was modified in November 2019 to include a commitment to promoting plant-based and low-carbon meals. Of the meals sold in Fusion Building (Chartwells main catered area) between August 2019 and March 2020, vegan and vegetarian dishes accounted for 57% of sales, with beef dishes accounting for only 11%. Across campus for the same period, including SUBU outlets, 43% of meals sold were vegetarian or vegan and only 7% included beef.

Meals sold across campus

7%

46% 25%

Meals sold in Fusion Building

20% 11%

12%

35%

4% 18%

Vegan Vegetarian Fish Non-ruminant meat Beef

22%

Vegan Vegetarian Fish Non-ruminant meat Beef

Chartwells continue to shift to a plant-based offer and embed sustainable practices within their work (www.compass-group.co.uk/sustainability) and have taken the following steps to reduce their meat offer at BU: • Removal of all lamb dishes on menu • Removal of beef in any retail sandwich cassettes from café outlets or any in-house sandwich/baguette offer • Chilli and bolognaise recipes removed beef to become plant-based • Burger offer, previously fully beef, now rotates between beef and chicken • Meatballs in new Field meal offer halved beef content to become 50% beef, 50% bulgur wheat The team has also increased plant-based offers through their macro salad bar, vegan boxed salads and blitzer pots, as created by BSc Nutrition student Alice Evans and as reported in our 2018/19 annual report.

SUBU has also taken steps to become more environmentally-friendly, including: • Sourcing meat locally from a Dorset butcher • Reducing beef content in burgers by 12.5% per serving • Installing doors on the display refridgerators in the shop to reduce energy use • Installing the first loose serve snacks in shop to move towards zero waste packaging • Achieving a ‘light touch’ refurbishment of the shop reusing the counters and equipment and installing new

UK manufactured shelving

Coffee cups and single-use plastics

In 2020, we redesigned our BU reusable mugs. They are now made of sustainably-sourced bamboo with a new colourful design to encourage their purchase and use. In order to promote the use of reusables, we increased the tax on disposable mugs to 30p across SUBU and BU. Between August 2019 and February 2020, 31% of hot drink sales were in a reusable mug. We also introduced a 10p tax on water bottles to discourage the use of single-use plastic. To balance this, we’ve installed three new water points on Talbot Campus to ensure that staff, students and visitors can access free water. Between August and February, 24055 water bottles were sold on campus, and these changes aim to reduce this figure from now on. We have been collecting the funds from the reusable mug and water bottle taxes to re-invest into sustainability initiatives.

Fairtrade

We once again celebrated Fairtrade Fortnight at BU in February 2020. This years’ campaign featured a range of delicious discounts across our outlets and an excellent event hosted by Mandy Gardner from the Fairtrade Foundation entitled ‘Climate, Economic Injustice, and Fairtrade’. Throughout the year, Chartwells ran a series of campaigns promoting Fairtrade and ensure Fairtrade products are available and accessible at all outlets.