At Coventry University we believe that the food we supply should be delicious and high quality with sustainability at the heart of every meal we serve.
We work in partnership with the catering providers at all our locations to enhance sustainability throughout the whole life cycle of the catering services we provide; from sourcing, preparing, serving, through to waste food and packaging. This is a key area in our tender processes, ensuring our contractors share our ethos to embed sustainability throughout all our catering activities.
As part of this catering provision, we support small businesses who can offer affordable, ethically sourced, hot and cold food, and ensure that our on-campus provision always includes a fully plant-based staffed outlet.
Food has a unique contribution to make to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals with the potential to impact on most of the goals; zero hunger, health, wellbeing and life on land being a few.
Edible Garden
Our edible garden located in the centre of campus is open for all to engage with. Students, staff and the community share the space to plant, grow and pick vegetables, herbs and fruit. A green and red flag system is in operation to indicate when produce is ready, and a noticeboard in the edible garden indicates what is planted throughout the garden.
Plants being grown during the 2025 season at the edible garden include brassicas, root crops such as carrot, beetroot, french climbing and runner beans on frames and climbing squash. Also, to be found is broad beans, courgettes, lettuce, tomatoes, aubergine and radish.
Alongside this pollinator planting will be rejuvenated this year by using hardy annuals and sown seeds, such as, Clarkia, Corncockle, Godetia and Nigella to attract pollinators.
So far, this year we have reduced the height of our large tier raised beds to improve access to the produce and accommodate easier harvesting. We have also refreshed the gravel pathways throughout the garden, and the herb section has seen a selection of culinary plants included and labelled to make picking easier for anyone wanting a simple ingredient to spice up a meal.
Sourcing
Coventry University is a one star Fairtrade University, this accreditation is awarded to us by the Fairtrade Foundation for working to raise awareness with our students of the issues of ethical and sustainable consumption, and increasing the availability of Fairtrade products in our outlets, including tea and coffee. Fairtrade is about better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world.
Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
We encourage everyone to separate and recycle their waste correctly when using our catering outlets and encourage users to choose crockery or refillable containers. To support this, discounts for using reusable coffee cups are available across campus and you can fill up water bottles for free at our water fountains in campus buildings.
