You are at University to get the best possible degree and we believe eating a healthy and balanced diet can improve academic achievement. We can help you reach your peak performance by providing some or all of your meals, giving you more free time to reach your potential, rather than plan meals, shop and cook.
Our Chef crafted meals are guided by the Menus of Change principles, promoting a healthy and sustainable diet, with plenty of whole grains, seasonal produce, fresh fruit and vegetables. The University has extensive academic interests in Agriculture, Environmental Sciences, Food & Nutrition, Biological Sciences, Pharmacy and Climate Sciences putting food and health at the heart of our University.
Our own farms produce a wide range of delicious foods and our beautiful nature reserves such as Langley Mead demonstrate our commitment to conservation and habitat restoration. The National Fruit Collection in Kent is curated by the University on behalf of the UK Government and is a living genetic bank of global importance. We even play a role in keeping the world’s Cocoa farmers safe through the International Cocoa Quarantine Centre and help preserve the rich rural heritage of England at the Museum of English Rural Life
We are confident you can eat a healthy and balanced diet with us so we have made it easy for you to check what you are eating.
The nutritional breakdown for nearly all our dishes is available from our Wellness Portal. By entering the recipe code or scanning the QR code at our restaurants, you are able to build a basket of meals and keep an eye on your nutrition. The Wellness Portal provides allergen, nutritional and, coming soon, carbon footprint information. The few dishes you won’t be able to find online are last minute specials and you can ask a member of the team for this information. We also publish a range of suggested menus each week to achieve certain diet profiles such as balanced or sports. Our technical group overseeing nutrition is made up of leading Academics, Sports Professionals and Chefs. They provide an expert opinion as we design menus.
Menus of Change is a joint Academic-Food Operator framework with 24 key principles for Healthy and Sustainable Menus. It was developed by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Culinary Institute of America. It originally addressed three questions;
“What if our most delicious foods—just coincidentally—were, or could be, also healthy and environmentally sustainable?
What if the most talented chefs, scientists, and business leaders, along with today’s culinary students, were collectively engaged in driving towards business-friendly solutions to our public health crisis and the most pressing environmental problems, like climate change and water scarcity?
What if we could create new approaches to collaboration between nutrition and medical experts, chefs, and environmental scientists to help the business community develop new models of innovation—and new, long-term business strategies—around opportunities for the future of food and foodservice?”
Today, the scheme has University and Corporate members across the world. At Reading, we are amongst the first to commit to following these principles in the UK and to demonstrate our passion for healthy and sustainable menus. This approach is transforming how our food is produced and how we work, for the better, with more positive change afoot for the 2022/23 Academic Year.
Our Clever Cuisine team are available to help, contact us below.