Goal 2: Policies, processes and practices

The following page outlines specific policies, processes and practices in support of Sustainable Development Goal 2 Zero Hunger.

Food waste tracking 

We measure the amount of food waste generated across the University campus. Our amount of food waste in 2022/23 is published on our publicly accessible website.

Tackling food insecurity 

We provide interventions to prevent and alleviate hunger among students. Our Community Fridge initiative helps combat food waste and offers free fresh food options to students, helping to reduce their costs. Through the SU Eats scheme, the Students’ Union has been running meal kit giveaways. The Students’ Union also has dedicated advisors who can issue food bank vouchers to students for use within the Greater Manchester network.  

We also provide interventions to prevent and alleviate hunger among members of staff. Our campus chaplaincy, St Peters House, runs a scheme called The Well supplying food parcels to any staff in need. Staff can receive a weekly Well Pack, which includes seven meal kits—one for each night of the week—or ready-made, cooked, and frozen meals for those unable to cook for themselves. 

Our Cost of Living Support fund helps students who are at risk of food insecurity or hunger due to low levels of personal finance. We also have student support resources on where to access and how to budget for safe, nutritional food.

We provide a range of free access to food security and sustainable agriculture and aquaculture knowledge, skills or technology to local farmers and food producers. We’re part of N8 Agrifood and collaborate with Veg Box People to share innovative strategies for addressing food security challenges and develop practical tools to enable local farmers, manufacturers, retailers and consumers to better respond to increasing stresses and risks.

Sustainable food initiatives

As a Fairtrade University we are committed to sustainable food choices on campus and we have a Sustainable Food Policy which all must adhere to. Our policy ensures ethical and responsible sourcing, prioritising the purchase of products from local, sustainable sources. FoodonCampus and FoodInResidence are committed to procuring produce locally wherever possible.  We commit to a minimum annual spend with Manchester Veg People who are a local co-operative of organic farmers.

We pride ourselves on the sustainable sourcing of ingredients with farm assured chicken, MCS approved fish, plastic free sandwiches, use local suppliers wherever possible, and are working towards a 3 star accreditation with the Sustainable Restaurant Award.

All of our cafes serve both vegetarian and vegan options, with our Manchester Museum Café being completely vegetarian. In our Marketplace all our independent local traders serve vegetarian and vegan options, with one fully vegetarian trader. We have received a one-star Fairtrade University award and have also achieved a Catey award for sustainability.

We provide healthy and affordable food choices throughout all our food outlets. All of our food traders serve vegetarian and vegan options. In our catered halls, there are vegetarian and vegan choices at every meal, along with plenty of fresh vegetables and fruit. We also have ‘Meat-Free Mondays‘ each week. Our menus in Food in Residence are CO2-labeled, enabling students to make sustainable choices.

To ensure affordability, students and staff receive 10% off all purchases in our wholly-owned campus outlets when they pay using their Food in Advance card. We allow fairly priced external partners, such as the Co-operative supermarket, to trade on campus. They offer a range of budget options, including a daily ‘meal deal’ for £4, which includes a sandwich, snack, and drink. They also offer a 10% discount. Our Marketplace has £5 offers for students to ensure they can afford our street traders’ offer.

Supporting local farmers

We provide events for local farmers and food producers to connect and transfer knowledge. As a shareholder in the Kindling Trust, the University actively supports their work by providing opportunities for their initiatives to be present on campus. The partnership allows the Kindling Trust to connect with staff and students and share their expertise in sustainable food production.

We also have a partnership with the ManchesterVeg People which is a collective of food buyers, growers and producers where knowledge and skills in purchasing and selling food sustainably is exchanged. They offer a weekly veg box service to staff and students which can be collected from campus, and they pay no costs to the University for this partnership.

Each week we host a free market on campus that brings together local food producers to trade with our staff and students and make connections and share best practice in street food sales.

Sustainable farming and food production

We provide access to university facilities (e.g. labs, technology, plant stocks) to local farmers and food producers to improve sustainable farming practices as part of our H3 programme – one of four research consortia funded by the £47.5M ‘Transforming UK Food System for Healthy People and a Healthy Environment SPF Programme’ delivered by UKRI, in partnership with the Global Food Security Programme, BBSRC, ESRC, MRC, NERC, Defra, DHSC, PHE, Innovate UK and FSA. As part of this programme we provide local food producers with access to our proprietary technologies allowing them to diversify their food production. This includes access to our laboratories in the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology for analysis of crop nutrition and soil carbon.

We are also building a hydroponic demonstrator as part of an InnovateUK Knowledge Transfer Partnership with a local Manchester-based company who are producing a sustainable artificial growth substrate. This company has access to university facilities and technologies that is aiming to bring to market new and sustainable growth medium. This will develop a new way of reusing waste foam by mixing foam particles with adhesives that absorb water, to make a new type of synthetic soil, with many different applications that have benefits for advancing sustainable food growing practice. As part of this we are building a demonstrator at The Firs. The Firs environmental research station has recently undergone a major redevelopment with the investment of £2million from the university’s endowment fund which has enabled the creation of a state of the art greenhouses facilities that are being used for issues relating to food security and climate change. The site is made up of fourteen climate controlled growing compartments which are able to produce a range of different environments from tropical to sub-arctic. By doing this they are able to simulate different growing environments to replicate conditions from around the world and conditions as a result of climate change.