Early success in food partnership at The Guernsey Institute
A partnership between the Health Improvement Commission and TGI - College of Further Education café team to improve the food provision is showing early success, with a large increase in vegetables, fruit and salad being sold.
In September last year, the Health Improvement Commission funded 6 new display fridge units, so students and staff can see the fresh food on offer. Following their introduction, between October and December 2021, sales data showed a near 50% increase in the amount of vegetables, salad and fruit sold by the canteen staff compared to the same period the year before. The sales data show that a major change is that customers are ordering salad in wraps which are very popular.
There have been price increases in food throughout supply chains, but analysis showed that on average, prices of salad items during 2021, purchased to stock the college café, have decreased. Based on this they are more confident that the increase in sales reflect people buying more salad, rather than paying more for salad items.
“Based on feedback from students and staff, we knew that presentation of food was an area to improve, therefore, it’s really encouraging to see the positive impact or what was a relatively simple change. We are continuing our close partnership with the College. Involving the student and staff voice, having strong leadership support and regular communication have been the key to this positive outcome. It takes time, effort and perseverance by all involved to develop the food offering as the College serves an incredibly diverse group of students, learners and staff. Our next steps include sourcing alternative product ranges to the island as we would like to try more options such as wholegrains.”
“We’re pleased to see an uptake in sales of our healthier items, we’ve been really pleased that we can offer the same food across all three sites, with the support of the Health Improvement Commission’s funding for the fridges. We’ve heard from the students that they are really impressed with the presentation of the food and that the prices mean that healthy food is more affordable. It’s great that we can support and fuel our students and staff with nutritious food.”