Award for sustainable and ethical campus catering

Locally sourced food, minimal environmental impact and fair treatment of staff has helped the University achieve a positive rating by a scheme assessing food and drink businesses worldwide.

Reading was awarded three stars on the Food Made Good scheme – the top award possible – across all its campus outlets and services.

Food Made Good is a global network of organisations as well as an industry standard scheme run by the Sustainable Restaurant Association, whose President is Raymond Blanc OBE. The award lasts two years.

The scheme scores hospitality businesses on all aspects of sustainability in their operations, including how they source food, treat employees and their environmental impact, as well as their strategies for further improvement.

Strong scores

Reading achieved scores of 95% or higher in all areas of its assessment. These were:

• Sourcing – 95%: The report stated Reading supports farmers and fishers, promotes plant-based foods, buys ingredients produced to high environmental standards and works with suppliers that shares our values. There was also praise for sharing this transparently with our community.
• Society – 97%: The report awarded full marks for feeding people well, praising the University’s Menus of Change work, and for supporting our community.
• Environmental – 96%: The report stated Reading ‘makes a great effort’ to manage its environmental impact, noting work to champion responsible consumption and production, regenerative farming projects and the new Meal Plan system for students.

The report also made recommendations for further improvements. These included setting out plans to tackle impacts such as deforestation in our food chains, skills sharing among kitchen staff, and redistributing leftover food.

Matt Tebbit, Director of Dining Services, said: “Environmental sustainability is a core strength of the University, and our catering operations are a big part of that. From using locally sourced and sustainable ingredients in our meals to reducing waste, we take our responsibility to reduce our impact on the planet seriously.

“We are proud to achieve such strong scores across the board in our Food Made Good report. This is the first time we have entered all our services into the scheme, so our significantly improved score shows that positive practices are ingrained in how we work.”