The University of Westminster’s Sustainability Team organised pop ups titled Winter Wipe-out Waste across the University’s campuses. The pop-ups aimed to embrace seasonal produce and reduce food waste this season by using innovative recipes and sparking a behavioural change among students and colleagues.
The Sustainability Team collaborated with Aramark, the University’s catering supplier. They hosted pop-ups on the Cavendish and Marylebone campuses on 15 and 17 October respectively, to showcase food from their Wipe-out Waste campaign.
The food contained ingredients that typically go to waste in kitchens. They also highlighted the use of seasonal fruits and vegetables such as apples, broccoli, kale, leeks, pak choi, squash and pumpkins. The pop-ups focused on the use of pumpkins, which are commonly wasted at this time of year with Halloween coming soon. Pumpkin blondies, pumpkin spiced salted caramel scones, pumpkin white chocolate smores, pumpkin bhajis and pumpkin soup were given out for free at these pop-ups to spark conversation about food waste among students and colleagues. The most popular food item sold at the pop-ups were the coffee ground brownies which are sold year-round at the University’s cafes.
About the food waste reduction pop-ups, Dularee Goonetilleke, Sustainability Coordinator in the Sustainability Team at Westminster, said: “Minimising food waste is essential in reducing our impact as a University. Our catering partners, Aramark, have worked hard to incorporate a circular economy model into their recipes and produced lovely treats for us. We can all do our part to reflect on our consumption patterns and reduce waste at Westminster.”
The pop ups directly contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 3: Good Health and Wellbeing, 12: Responsible Consumption and Production and 17: Partnerships for Goals. Since 2019, the University of Westminster has used the SDGs holistically to frame strategic decisions to help students and colleagues fulfil their potential and contribute to a more sustainable, equitable and healthier society.
Find out more about Sustainability at the University of Westminster.
