Ambitious plans to revitalise the University of Reading’s foodservice operations have been implemented in a number of stages since the start of the year, with further development work still to be rolled out during the summer recess. £20 million is being invested over two years on a catering strategy which will see a new centralised food production unit and a major refurbishment of food outlets within halls, cafés and bars. Overseen by Derek Birch, Food & Beverage Manager, many outlets have already been refitted and equipped with a new coffee offering that is starting to show significant increases in sales and generate excellent feedback from customers and staff.

The changes have taken place partly because the University itself is making huge strides towards becoming a green university which includes initiatives such as increasing availability of Fairtrade goods (it has been a Fairtrade University for a number of years), greater waste recycling and significantly reducing carbon emissions. Derek’s own challenge is to not only move towards more sustainable, greener sourcing of food and beverages, but also to recognise the fact that customers are becoming ever-more discerning in their taste for great coffee and that real competition is never far away.

Fairtrade foodservice distributor Peros has worked with Derek and his team to help the University design, develop and implement appropriate solutions. These solutions have been based on three key principles; improving the quality of coffee provision; maintaining the ethical credentials of the offering; and enhancing the branding throughout the outlets.

The quality of the coffee has been improved by moving from a powdered-coffee solution to fresh-ground beans, supplied either through bean to cup machines or barista-produced via traditional espresso machines. This move has had the greatest impact says Derek. “Moving to fresh ground coffee has really upped the ante, and has been the key to everything we have achieved,” he says. “Customers, through their experiences in every high street, have come to expect a high quality, freshly-made coffee – this is the standard we now deliver. The quality comes not only from the coffee itself, but also the standard of the supplying equipment and, in the case of the espresso machines, the skills of the barista. To underwrite the importance of these skills we have invested a significant amount of time in staff training and education,” he adds. “This training has helped the staff to understand more about the origins and taste of the coffee being served. They become much more closely involved in the delivery of excellence, particularly where barista training has been provided.”

For the coffee offering Peros supplies the well-known and highly respected Cafédirect range which has an excellent reputation for taste and 100% Fairtrade credentials. By providing such a recognised brand, Peros has enabled Derek to not only meet his taste and ethical requirements but also to improve the level and consistency of branding throughout the campus outlets. “Being a well respected brand, Cafédirect gives us an immediately recognisable quality advantage, and a chance to standardise that higher quality across our outlets,” Derek says. The branding material Peros has supplied includes machine graphics, menus, posters and table talkers, with more to follow in later stages.

The University of Reading is ranked as one of the UK’s ten most research-intensive universities and as one of the top 200 universities in the world. Its campus facilities and foodservice outlets are continually improving to match those high standards, and Derek is confident that the pace of change will not slow down. “We need to be constantly evaluating what we do, and how we can improve it. For this process, it is vital to have suppliers working in partnership alongside the organisation, always bringing in new ideas and products from the outside. Peros have helped us enormously, and continue to do so. They have seamlessly, and without disruption, radically improved our coffee offering with supporting branding, training and advice,” Derek says.

Derek and his team manage a number cafés and bars across the Reading facility, which is widely acknowledged to be one of the most attractive university campuses in the UK. In fact the main Whiteknights site is set in 130 hectares of beautiful parkland. In delivering another of their ‘greener’ objectives, the food and beverage team directly contributes to the beauty of their surroundings because their recycled Fairtrade coffee grinds are composted and used to enrich the soil on campus.

Peros works with a growing number of leading Universities that are increasingly opting for ethical and sustainable operations in their foodservice provision. There are now over 70 Fairtrade Universities and Colleges in the UK, with many more working towards that status. Peros supplies the products, services and expertise required to meet these demands.