Catering

Wageningen University & Research (WUR) has a number of restaurants and vending machines for providing staff and students with food and drink. WUR believes it is important to think about the consequences of food choices.

WUR’s ambition is that what is sold in restaurants and from vending machines should be sustainable and healthy. WUR has described these goals and ambitions in its Food & Beverages vision.

Priority areas

The three priority areas ‘Healthy’, ‘Sustainable’ and ‘Inclusive’ are the benchmarks for all WUR catering facilities and activities. Practically, they translate into eight principles: ‘healthy and vital’, ‘protein transition’, ‘reducing food waste’, ‘seasonal, fresh and local’, ‘sustainable management’, ‘packaging-conscious’, ‘innovative’ and ‘inclusion as a core value’.

In doing so, WUR is challenging itself and its partners to have as much positive and social impact as possible. In practice, we believe that our Food & Beverage offerings are a good reflection of what WUR aspires to and the impression it wants to make. The food and drink is fresh, healthy, and mostly based on vegetable proteins. The food and ingredients are in season and produced locally whenever possible.

Organised by contracted market contacts

The Food & Beverage facilities at WUR are largely organised by contracted market contacts. WUR is asking these catering companies to work together to contribute to WUR’s healthy, sustainable and inclusive ambitions. This can be seen through the various activities it has planned throughout the year, which link up as much as possible to existing initiatives, including the Nationale Week Zonder Vlees (‘National Meat Free Week’), One World Week and Verspillingsvrije Week (‘Waste Free Week’).

The eight principles mentioned above are also central to our catering partners’ working methods, processes and operational management. In addition to sustainable initiatives that are being implemented, purchased or adopted, our catering facilities act as a Living Lab, which encourages and facilitates collaboration between businesses, WUR’s primary process and other educational and research institutes.

Appearance, user experience and sustainability

The appearance and user experience of eating and drinking facilities at WUR will be inviting, tasteful, safe and accessible. This is true both physically and financially. The raw materials for the inventory, equipment and consumables in the catering facilities are handled with care. Topics including recycling and critical energy management, as well as bio-based, smart packaging and rethinking use and necessities, are the norm.

Sustainability also means paying attention to social values and inclusivity. Both WUR and its Food & Beverage partners are making demonstrable structural efforts in sustainable employment. This means employing people at a disadvantage in the job market. The WUR Job Participation Support team (Jops) will be involved where possible.