The University is committed to delivering sustainable and nutritious food to all students, staff and customers to all our campus outlets. These commitments are mirrored by the Students’ Union within their shops and cafes.
Key highlights.
- We're proud to be accredited as a Fairtrade University and to hold a gold Food for Life award.
- Thanks to the launch of our disposable cup fee and reusable cup rental scheme in September 2023, reusable cup use has increased by 49.9%.
- All cafe's offer non-disposable cup options.
- We offer a wide variety of vegan and vegetarian main meals available across all catering outlets.
Our Sustainable Food and Fairtrade Policies outline our ambitions on the food on offer whilst taking action to ensure those producing the ingredients are treated fairly.
Sales data is monitored, and the policies are reviewed annually via the Sustainable Food Sub-Committee, with progress reported annually to the Sustainability Management Committee.
Our Caterers
The food at the University is provided by BaxterStorey, Sodexo and Greenwich Students' Union. We also seek to use our buying power as a University to support local producers and businesses.
It is important to ensure we work with the best partners to deliver the most sustainable food that we can. To help this we have strict procurement requirements when we retender our catering contract (this was last retendered in May-July 2024). Our Invitation to tender requires: The Contractor/ Partner will as a minimum: Re-accreditation with Food for Life Gold within 3 months of contract start and the commitment to meeting the university Sustainable Food Policy, Sustainability Policy, Fairtrade Policy, Carbon Management Plan from contract start date.
Every three months we meet with catering partners, key UoG staff including the sustainability team and student representatives to ensure that progress against the our Sustainable Food and Fairtrade strategies are being met. Catering is within the scope of our Environmental Management System and our caterers on site operations and progress against Policy targets are audited. A case study of sustainable improvements made at one of our outlets, The Dome (Avery Hill) can be found here.
Our 2024/2025 commitments
- Increase our reuse rate throughout the catering outlets
- Continue to reduce the disposable across all outlets through incentives and Cauli-Cup scheme.
To maintain the following accreditations:
- Fairtrade Foundation University (maintaining at least a Level 1 award via bi-annual external (SOS) audits) as a Sustainable Procurement KPI)
- Food for Life Gold
- Marine Stewardship Council Award for Sustainable Fish
- Click here to find out more about these achievements.
Sustainable Food Initiatives
Fairtrade
The University is committed to using, selling and promoting Fairtrade products through all its outlets. Fairtrade is all about getting better and safe farming working conditions, and for us high quality, ethically produced products. Check out our dedicated Fairtrade Page to learn more, and get involved with our annual Fairtrade Fortnight event, illustrating the importance of treating farmers fairly.
Ditch the Disposable
Did you know that 2.5 billion disposable cups are used every year in the UK? What’s worse is that less than 1% of them are recycled!
With an inner plastic sleeve, disposable cups are difficult to recycle and are a commonly contaminated item in recycling waste streams. Individual actions do make a difference. Please remember to always bring your reusable cup. If you don’t have your own cup, do not worry, there is a variety to choose from at each outlet!
Coffee Grounds
Don’t forget to check around the café, you may come across a small small signposted tray with bags of coffee grounds. Coffee grounds make excellent fertiliser for gardens, so please do take a bag or two. You can add the grounds to a compost bin or directly into the soil, and they can even help to keep the slugs and snails away. It may not seem much, but hundreds of bags will be used over the year, so this saves on waste and helps you to go organic in the garden.
Water Fountains
The University has water fountains installed around its campuses as well as free water stations in all catering outlets. Look at our campus maps for their location.
Campus Growing Spaces
You can ‘grow your own’ at Avery Hill’s Edible Garden. Students and staff and welcome to volunteer and learn how to grow fruit and veg, make friends get some exercise and fresh air. Interested? – Follow this link for more information.
Our Stockwell Street building also has large fruit and vegetable gardens that are tended to by students and staff and is part of our wider urban agriculture research. We are planning a edibles grow space at Medway too. Watch this space.
We have beehives at all campuses with Avery Hill campus produced honey for sale at the Village Shop.
Look out for our orchard planted through support by the Orchard Project. It’s located across from the Edible Garden (below the tennis courts). Visit from July when the apple and pear and other fruits begin ripening. If you are interested in learning how to prune orchard trees then get in touch.
Make Your Change
As part of our Make Your Change Initiative you can make a positive difference through actions to reduce the carbon footprint associated with the university’s catering.
Not only is reducing meat consumption good for your health (study) is is also good in reducing your carbon footprint. Simply halving meat consumption to less than 50 grams a day, food-related emissions fall by a third, saving almost a tonne of CO2 each year, equivalent to an economy return flight between London and New York. Greenwich’s catering suppliers now provide a larger range of vegetarian and vegan options and partake in meat free days during Veganuary and Green Week. So why not try a meat-free day and even that one portion will make a difference. Read more here.
