Campus food – the innovation on your plate

Most of us have dined in one of the catering outlets on campus at some point, but what we may not have realised is that our food choices are helping to guide efforts to create and market more nutritious meals.

The Catering team, within Campus Commerce, has been applying research carried out by our own academics to its campus menus for a number of years.

This includes using cutting edge science to introduce healthier ingredients into well-known meals, and promoting them with carefully-worded descriptions informed by psychology and marketing studies.

The aim is to serve meals that reflect Reading’s leading academic position in areas such as agriculture, food and nutritional science and psychology, as well as encouraging diners to make more sustainable choices.

Meals designed by science

Move the sliders to reveal the sustainable and research-inspired elements to three popular dishes.

(Please note, the interactive element is not fully accessible to keyboard users. A text description is included for each dish.)

Burgers with 20% less meat but more flavour

The burger recipe includes a bun from a local bakery 13 miles away, cheese from a creamery 15 miles away, beef from the University's own farm, and chestnut mushrooms mixed with the beef to reduce meat content and enhance the beef flavours.

Sandwiches made with locally-sourced ingredients

The smoked chicken focaccia contains flour from a mill 30 miles away, chicken smoked in-house for flavour control, cheese from 15 miles away , and pesto made on site using fresh ingredients.

Vegan dishes that use meat and dairy alternatives

The aubergine steak dish contains miso marinated aubergine for zero meat but max flavour, polenta fries which are naturally lower in fat than chips, dairy free parmesan-style shavings, and lemony baba ganoush that enhances the flavours.

The research-based approach in our kitchens also means:

• Recipes designed by food scientists: these increase intake of healthy ingredients while also enhancing flavours. Recent meals have featured oily fish containing omega 3 and ‘good’ unsaturated fats, or boosted protein and fibre content by swapping rice for other grains or making brownies with ground quinoa instead of flour.
• Sustainable meals: dishes that use less meat and locally-sourced ingredients, and reduce waste by using every bit of animals from our own farms.
• Taste tests: staff and students regularly get to try out new recipes before they are added to menus.
• Experimental marketing: meal descriptions are focused on flavours, which has been found to make them more appealing.
• Behavioural studies: researchers plan to study whether students on meal plans while studying at Reading continue to eat more healthily after graduating.

Matt Tebbit, Head of Catering and Bars, said: “We have made it our mission to give food more thought on our campuses. We are surrounded by leading research into food and nutritional science, so it is only right that our recipes reflect this.

“It may not be obvious at a glance, but many of the meals we serve up are brand new and contain ingredients you won’t find elsewhere.”

Clever Cuisine

Reading was the first university in the UK to join the Menus of Change Universities Research Collaborative, which has seen us turn our dining rooms into living labs.

The collaborative features research institutions from all over the world that share ideas on creating tasty and environmentally-friendly dishes. The University has pledged to reduce emissions on meat products by 30% by 2030 as part of its membership.

The Clever Cuisine scheme, designed by our Catering team, was created using this knowledge and outlook and was a first for a UK university. It provides meal plans for students and high-quality options for colleagues, with a focus on plated meals and a balanced diet to boost academic performance.

The number of students on these meal plans has grown from 5% in 2021/22 to 10% this year.

Reading’s Catering operation runs at break even, so all proceeds from sales go into maintaining and improving the food provision in campus outlets.