Healthy eating

A healthy lifestyle contributes positively to sustainability

We all know that regular exercise and a good diet have a positive effect on our health, but they also contribute to sustainability. Things we can do includes buying local produce to:

  • get fresher food
  • support our local economy
  • reduce the need for products that require longer journeys for delivery

We also know that:

  • ethical sourcing of food and drink helps the welfare of workers, animals, communities and biodiversity
  • local produce often comes in less packaging, reducing our use of plastics
  • healthier eating promotes wellbeing, makes physical activity easier and means there is less chance of developing medical complications - this makes our population a more sustainable one

What we are doing

We have committed to providing healthy and sustainable food on campus. We also ensure that our offering is inclusive for all our staff and students. Nearly 30% of our current menu is suitable for a plant based or vegan diet.

We work with students from our Sports and Nutrition programmes to provide nutritional information for our menus.

We have committed to reducing single use plastics in internal catering services. Where possible, we have switched to compostable packaging, currently 85% of all packaging is using the Vegware brand.

We strongly encourage the use of refillable cups and bottles and have water fountains readily available and signposted.

We have developed a University-wide Hospitality Policy to ensure that staff use internal catering services. This has reduced delivery miles, packaging and food waste.

We are also bringing more of our catering outlet contracts back “in-house”. This enables us to uphold university core values such as:

  • utilising Fairtrade ingredients
  • upholding the living wage
  • using local, sustainable products and consumables

Whenever possible, we buy from and support local independent businesses.

How we are promoting healthy and sustainable food

We work closely with Love Food Hate Waste and Liverpool Food People (a co-lead of the Knowledge Quarter Sustainability Network along with us).

We donate food to the Whitechapel Centre - a leading homeless and housing charity for the Liverpool region.

We plan to introduce ways to reduce food waste even further – such as the Too Good To Go app which lets students and staff buy and collect food that has not sold in time, so it gets eaten instead of wasted.

Our Students Union has developed three growing sites in the city. These are found at Kensington Fields Community Centre, Henry Cotton Building and the Student Life Building. The sites will allow the whole community to grow and enjoy fruit, vegetables, sensory herbs, and flowers for pollinators.

We work with suppliers to deliver high quality food and drink services and goods. We work to meet the current and future needs of staff, students and the local community based on our values:

  • we actively buy certified products
  • all on-campus coffee is Fair-trade
  • our fish and seafood supplier is MSC-certified
  • our meat products are Red Tractor certified
  • we provide free-to-use water stations around the campus

Our policies and procedures are in place to ensure the correct process is adopted to meet the university’s needs and ethos. For example, we ensure compliance with policies for:

  • health and safety
  • sustainability
  • diversity and equality
  • corporate and social responsibility

More details and our policies can be found at How to do business with LJMU.

We also work closely with our purchasing consortium to ensure that sustainability is embedded within all procurement functions and frame works.

We ensure that our nutrition-related undergraduate degrees include the scientific, psycho-social, cultural, political, sustainable and commercial aspects of health care, health promotion and nutrition aspects of food production.