Forty universities currently hold the Catering Mark for some aspect of their food offerings, be it a small campus pub or a large full-service cafeteria. According to the Catering Mark website, 32,000 certified meals are served in U.K. universities each workday [
43]. The case studies profiled here represent two types of university catering—in-house (self-catered), as is the case with Nottingham Trent University, and contracted foodservice provider, as is the case with University of the Arts London, which contracts with BaxterStorey. BaxterStorey is a U.K.-owned catering company founded in 2004 with a commitment to fresh, local, seasonal food, according to Operations Manager John Wood [
44]. Nottingham Trent was the first university in the U.K. to achieve the silver award and consistently scores in the top five on the People and Planet University League table of university sustainability. University of the Arts London was the first university in the U.K. to achieve the gold award.
4.1. Nottingham Trent University
Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is located in the heart of the Midlands city of Nottingham, a community of about 500,000, surrounded by fertile farmland and charming villages. The University does all its catering in-house, serving about 2500 meals each day, 1000 of which are certified by the Food For Life Catering Mark. Ivan Hopkins, the former Executive Chef who now heads Catering and Hospitality, has been the driving force behind the implementation of the Catering Mark at NTU.
“We just can’t do that,” was Hopkins’ initial reaction, after speaking with a local hospital manager who used the Catering Mark. “But then I sat and thought about it, and I realized that we were already doing many of the things required by the Catering Mark, but we weren’t communicating it to customers. It seemed a shame not to get recognition for it.” [
45]. Hopkins recognized that the goals of the Catering Mark were akin to his own views, that “it never made any sense to me to put asparagus on a menu in December”.
Hopkins quickly found an ally in Grant Anderson, NTU’s Environment Manager, who recognized that achieving the Catering Mark would mean extra points for NTU’s ranking on the People and Planet University League table. Hopkins notes that the university takes great pride in consistently placing in the top five of the University League, and anything that could help it stay at the top was taken seriously. From his original skepticism, Hopkins moved to a bold decision to go for both the bronze and silver awards at the same time. In 2010, after a grueling seven-hour inspection, NTU became the first university to achieve the silver award. A recent rise in tuition fees across the U.K. has made competition for students more intense, and Hopkins believes the Catering Mark gives NTU an edge [
45].
Hopkins was also highly conscious of the need to create a new and different supply chain. To achieve his goals, he started to buy more food directly, rather than through a university bulk-buying consortium. He identified specific products that could come from local farmers and worked with a local produce distribution company, Millside-Barrowcliffe, to purchase local potatoes, carrots, strawberries, and so on. In addition, he sources fair trade and organic coffee, organic eggs, milk and yogurt and Red Tractor Assured meat from Owen-Taylor and Sons Ltd., a regional butcher.
Using more fresh and seasonal products has meant re-thinking the menu. For example, Hopkins recalls being approached by a company offering to supply a burrito “kit”, complete with frozen peppers and onions, frozen anonymous beef and chicken and processed salsa. Instead, Hopkins replicated the kit with products that met Catering Mark criteria, including locally-sourced meat, fresh local vegetables and homemade salsa. “We are trying to meet high street trends,” Hopkins says. “We can make a superior product by replicating these trends using the Food For Life Catering Mark guidelines” [
45].
Hopkins made a serious commitment to using the Catering Mark and provides opportunities to educate students about food issues. Besides colourful posters and website information, “every day the staff get a briefing about all the dishes on the menu, so that they will know what’s local and how to talk about the products with students. The best form of communication is person-to-person. If you’re making a selection, and someone tells you that those carrots were grown near Newark just up the road, that makes a difference” [
45]. In addition, Hopkins offers a staff training package every year and takes staff out to visit local suppliers. The author’s interviews with chefs and serving staff confirmed these statements. Staff were knowledgeable about the Catering Mark and proud and enthusiastic to share their knowledge [
46,
47].
Hopkins acknowledges that maintaining the Catering Mark takes work. There is a significant increase in paperwork. In addition, the human side of the work, developing relationships with suppliers and educating staff and students, is time-consuming. However, he is convinced that NTU is on the right track, and he readily speaks with other universities considering the program. He observes that students are responding well; staff are better informed; and “I could quite easily take the Food For Life Catering Award certificate off the wall, but it wouldn’t stop carrying on. The certificate is now a bonus for us really” [
45]. In other words, the new approach has been embedded in the university’s foodservice operations, as well as into its supply chain.
The food supply chain is generally understood as unidirectional, a one-way trip moving from farm to table. Hopkins, in effect, created a two-way supply chain, where he works with suppliers to manage and develop new sources of products. This requires collaboration every step of the way and a new way of thinking about the relationships involved in the food system. As a result, the work that has gone into achieving the Food For Life Catering Mark at NTU has moved the sustainability needle not just on campus, but backwards, among NTU’s food suppliers, as well. It has not always been easy. Hopkins says he spent much time nurturing a relationship with a small local egg producer, who eventually closed her doors. However, other relationships are thriving. Suppliers have made significant changes to their product mix and are committed to farm assurance schemes, in order to hold onto, or gain, contracts with NTU.
Anthony Millward is the Managing Director of Millside-Barrowcliffe in Nottingham. His medium-sized company, with 120 employees, sources and distributes fresh produce and processes and vacuum-packs fresh cut vegetables. He is “excited and proud for Ivan for what he has achieved—he’s done it for everyone” [
48]. Millward says he shifted his buying practices after starting to work with Hopkins and now sources up to 40% of his produce from local farmers, which he defines as farms located in a 15-mile radius around Nottingham. He is especially proud of graduation days at NTU, when 20,000 students and family members are fed strawberries and sparkling wine over a five-day period. “The berries are picked at 7 am. We process them in the morning, and they are at the university for graduation in the afternoon” [
48]. This is the pride of a champion and illustrates that agency exists at all levels of the food chain.
John Lupton, another champion of the food supply chain, is the Sales and Marketing Manager at Owen Taylor and Sons Family Butcher, located in Derbyshire, less than 20 miles away from NTU. The firm was established in 1922 and currently has 140 employees, who prepare beef, pork, lamb and poultry to customer specifications for the catering trade. Lupton sees universities as a valuable market with large contracts that provide the company with financial stability, adding “If they all go onto a six-ounce rump steak, we’ll be cutting something like three thousand six-ounce rump steaks for delivery in one day, and that’s just one meal for that day” [
49]. In addition, because universities are closed during December, the university contract permits Owen-Taylor to focus on other clients during the busy holiday season and thereby diversify the client mix.
Lupton says Owen Taylor has been approached to sell to major supermarkets, but has declined because “They end up owning your business. It’s too many eggs in one basket. If they drop you, you have no business. But it’s a very difficult decision to make because it’s lucrative” [
49]. Lupton calls Owen-Taylor a “farm to plate” operation, which focuses on buying live animals from local farms (within a 40-mile radius) and having them slaughtered in a local abattoir. The company then cuts the meat to order, for sale to local chefs at restaurants, hotels, hospitals, universities and schools. They serve up to 700 individual clients at any one time. Lupton believes this has preserved skilled jobs in a region of the country that has experienced a significant economic decline after the closure of the coal mines.
Owen Taylor supplies meat to both NTU and the University of Nottingham, both of which use the Food For Life Catering Mark. According to Lupton, the company had been supplying NTU before it went for Catering Mark certification, and the fact that all of the products meet Red Tractor standards ensured that they could continue the relationship with NTU. He says university clients are a growing part of the business, and meeting Red Tractor standards has made it possible to tender for contracts with institutions using the Food For Life Catering Mark. He says the extra work and cost of certification are worthwhile because certification is increasingly becoming a requirement of institutional contracts.
4.2. University of the Arts London
University of the Arts London (UAL) is a multi-campus university with 26,000 students in the heart of London. Considered one of the world’s top five universities for art and design [
50], UAL brings together six colleges, which feature visual art, design, fashion, communication and performing art under one umbrella. Catering for 19 food outlets over the six locations is overseen by UAL’s Head of Retail and Catering, Alastair Johns, and contracted to BaxterStorey, a midsized domestic caterer with a focus on sustainability and provenance. In May 2014, UAL became the first university to achieve the gold Catering Mark.
The decision to go for the gold Catering Mark was spearheaded by Johns. Johns and his colleague Ian Lane, UAL’s Head of Sustainability, positioned the changeover as part of an overall sustainability strategy for the university. This attitude is embodied in UAL’s Sustainable Food Policy, authored by Johns, which begins with the statement that “The University will create a culture of social and environmental awareness in order to develop and integrate sustainable and ethical policies throughout every aspect of our life and work”. The policy goes on to state that “Healthier, ethically sourced, more sustainable food may help to encourage lifestyle changes both inside and outside the university, leading to a positive impact on health and wellbeing, as well as the environment” [
51]. Johns says one of the challenges was to convince the university to spend a little more on catering (£60,000 in a multi-million £ total budget). In addition, there was a 1% increase in prices charged at food outlets. Johns says students have reacted with enthusiasm, and the cafeterias are full every day.
The contract for catering was won by BaxterStorey, despite the fact that their bid was the highest, because Johns was confident that only an independent company with a reputation for local, seasonal and fresh food could fulfill the university’s mandate. Johns was also confident that BaxterStorey could be partners in implementing the program, rather than resisting it, essential to a collaborative relationship. BaxterStorey is the largest independent caterer in the U.K., with several hundred clients, including other universities. Relative to the transnational foodservice companies, BaxterStorey is a midsized firm. However, within the U.K. market, they wield enough buying power that they have been able to influence their own supply chain to ensure that they can source sustainable products from U.K. suppliers, an important example of how university policy can diffuse change throughout the food chain.
Sustainable and organic meats have been the biggest challenge, according to BaxterStorey Operations Manager John Wood. Sustainable bacon was particularly hard to find because low-priced bacon is widely available from other parts of the EU. Wood recalls that “we went to a farmer who could meet Catering Mark standards, and told him we wanted all his pork, to turn it into bacon.” Wood says chicken was another challenge. “Free-range chicken is never really commercial, and rare to see within our business, because it’s hugely expensive,” he says. “But we went to the farmer, and we said ‘we are ready to buy 800–1000 chicken legs a week, if you can supply them’” [
44]. Wood claims BaxterStorey has been able to create more sustainable supply chains for other products, as well, citing free-range eggs and frozen peas as two examples. These are instances of how high-volume orders can affect the willingness of producers to change both their price points and their product quality level a vivid example of how problem solving and collaboration can take place in a more sustainable system.
Johns says they have dealt with additional costs of higher quality meat by reducing the quantity of meat served. He credits Chef Garret Lynch for his enthusiasm and commitment and his creativity in menu planning. “We’re on the same wavelength, and we want the same results”, says Johns. Testifying to the importance of champions, Johns declares “you can easily get chefs who don’t believe in it, and the whole thing will come to a shuddering halt. You need someone of Garret’s level to actually drive through what we want driven through” [
52].
Lynch understood two operational requirements for more sustainable food systems. One of his innovations was to simplify the menu offerings at smaller outlets with limited kitchen facilities. They serve just two options a day, one vegetarian and one meat-based. This seemingly simple measure has significant impacts. The limited menu controls cost and reduces waste and gives food staff time to prepare meals from scratch. Menus with many offerings usually rely on “heat and eat” prepared foods brought in by distributors. Limiting the menu is an operational necessity in the move to more fresh, seasonal and whole foods, an example of how seemingly minor foodservice changes can become pivotal to important changes further down the food chain.
Lynch also recognized the importance of educating staff so that they, in turn, can educate students. Like Ivan Hopkins at NTU, Lynch ensures that staff at all of the outlets are briefed every day. He notes that students are asking more questions about the food, and he wants his staff to have answers [
53]. This is a reflection of the change in relationships as the system becomes more sustainable, and catering increasingly requires relationship- and knowledge-based skills, rather than commodity-handling ones.
Ian Lane, UAL’s Head of Sustainability, credits Johns for initiating and driving the change at UAL, but stresses that champions were necessary at every level for the university to achieve the gold Catering Mark. The Vice Chancellor and the chair of the university’s Environment Board, as well as operational staff, had to be on board before the go-ahead was given. Lane believes that the Catering Mark repositions the place of food in the university as a sort of “Trojan horse” or wedge for other sustainability initiatives. “Usually universities think about energy or waste as areas for addressing sustainability and corporate social responsibility,” Lane reasons. “But food is a great way to keep sustainability front and centre. When you’re presented with a complex dynamic challenge like sustainability, I think you need to provide confidence that what you’re doing is the right thing and can be easily achieved. Compared to a solar panel which you might see once and forget about, food is your most obvious opportunity to showcase sustainability because you eat food every day” [
54]. To this end, Johns ensures that the university’s sustainable food achievements are front and centre, with plenty of high profile signage explaining why the university is committed to sustainability in food, how the gold Catering Mark was achieved and exactly which ingredients are used in each dish.
Lane acknowledges that UAL hopes to move up to be among the top three universities in the People and Planet University League this year and that “the university is quite keen to push itself up on that agenda”. He contends that “everything we do under the banner of sustainability has to meet the needs of the university, but also deliver a reputational increase” [
54]. However, Johns insists that going for the gold Catering Mark was not just about ticking off a box, but that “we did it because we fundamentally believe in it.” He argues that the gold Catering Mark helps them to achieve other goals, such as contributing to local economic development and health. “I want to ensure that students have the opportunity to eat decent, healthy food”, he says. “When they leave, they may take some of that with them”. Johns intuitively understands the multifunctional potential of food when he adds that “offering decent hot food is also about the community and the social space—it’s an important part of university life” [
52].
An important supplier of vegetables and fruit that ends up in the meals served at UAL is Chegworth Valley Farm, a Kent County organic farm and producer of award-winning farm-pressed apple and fruit juices. The farm is less than 35 miles southeast of London, in a region known as the “Garden of England”. The Deme family farms about 300 acres of fruit, as well as vegetables and greens, more than 70 different items in all, which they wholesale to independent stores, restaurants, hotels and caterers for institutional settings, including BaxterStorey. The Demes also run stalls at several London farmers markets, three shops in London that feature organic and local products and a home delivery box scheme that makes daily deliveries throughout London and Kent. The company epitomizes the proactive energy that midsize entrepreneurial firms bring to the food system and the role of agency in both the development and diffusion of sustainable practices.
Chegworth Valley Farm features heritage apple varieties, many of which are pressed into juice on-site and often mixed with berries and vegetables for an array of flavours. Although the processing operation is tucked into a small corner of one of the farm buildings, it produces two million bottles of juice a year and earns about half of the farm revenue, according to Marketing Manager Vikki Wright [
55]. Wright says hoop houses allow them to extend the growing season for vegetables and berries. At the height of the season, the farm employs 80 people. The farm is certified organic by the Soil Association and is a member of the Catering Mark Supplier Scheme. This means that caterers working toward the gold award can buy products from Chegworth Valley Farm with full confidence that all products are Catering Mark compliant.