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About Us

We're committed to providing a great on-campus catering service for students, staff and visitors

We run multiple cafes and restaurants on the Newcastle University campus, a catered halls of residence and an Event Catering business to deliver catering for events. Our vision is to be the best University caterer in the country, and we're constantly striving to develop our service to meet your needs.

We provide a wide range of healthy and sustainable products in all of our outlets. Our numerous accreditations display our continued commitment to environmental and social responsibility. Our suppliers share our values. 

All meals and grab and go containing meat, allowed within a Halal diet, which is produced by the University's Hospitality team is Halal certified.


Our values

We are committed to providing an excellent, sustainable service within the local community. Our mission is to Welcome the world to Newcastle, and we aim to nurture great minds for a better tomorrow. 

As the University's catering service, our key areas of focus are:

  • running an environmentally sustainable business
  • providing nutritional, great quality food and drinks which cater to a variety of diets and lifestyles
  • offering excellent value for money to our staff, students and visitors
  • delivering a friendly, welcoming service and relaxing facilities to help nourish the wellbeing of our community

Our suppliers

We're cultivating a food supply chain that provides value for money whilst delivering greater economic, social and environmental benefits.

Our suppliers share our core values. They pay particular attention to increasing:

  • consumption of healthy and nutritious food
  • use of seasonal goods
  • the proportion of fairly traded products available
  • the proportion of food produced according to a recognised farm assurance standard

And reducing:

  • food waste
  • packaging waste
  • the number of food deliveries made to the catering outlets

Our suppliers also provide reasonable support for university awareness and training schemes, and facilitate relationships between the university and small producers

 

Becoming a supplier

We welcome opportunities to work with suppliers who share our values and can help us meet our objectives. If you're interested in becoming a supplier please e-mail purchasing@ncl.ac.uk


Sustainability

We recognise our responsibility to carry out catering activities in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.

 

What we believe in

As the University's catering service, we are aware of the impact we have on the environment, and are continuously introducing solutions to minimise this, as outlined in our Story of sustainability

Our food is sourced and purchased in line with the university’s Sustainable Procurement; producers are vetted on both the quality of their goods and hygiene of their premises.

See the sections below to find out what we've done so far to reduce our impact. If you have suggestions or would like to work with us to help us improve, please get in touch at catering@ncl.ac.uk - we'd love to hear from you.


Accreditations

Our accreditations demonstrate our commitment to sustainable, ethical, healthy and locally-sourced food.

 

The Good Egg Award

The Good Egg Award celebrates companies who use only cage-free eggs or egg products. All of our eggs come from a cage-free local supplier.

 

The Heart of Newcastle Award

We were previously awarded The Heart of Newcastle Award by Newcastle City Council, which recognised food businesses in the city who promoted excellent standards of hygiene and healthy choices. Unfortunately the award is no longer operated by the Council but we continue to promote and provide healthy food and drink choices, and have excellent standards of food hygiene

 

Red Tractor Farm Assurance

We are members of the Red Tractor Farm Assurance scheme. The scheme encompasses food safety, hygiene, animal welfare and environmental protection. Members believe it's important to know where your food comes from, that the basic welfare needs of sheep and cattle must not be compromised at any stage of their lives, and that farmers must ensure that their farming practices do not damage the environment.

 

The Food Standards Agency

The Food Standards Agency is an independent Government department set up by an Act of Parliament in 2000 to protect the public's health and consumer interests in relation to food.

 

Scores on the Doors

This independent consumer information service supports the Food Standards Agency national Food Hygiene Rating Scheme (FHRS). Our outlets display five stars (the highest rating) but soon the ratings will change to conform to this national scheme. In addition to the FHRS scheme, the Scores on the Doors service will publish additional local authority schemes such as Fair Trade and Healthy Eating.