Student snacking solutions; we worked with the University of Huddersfield to revolutionise its food offer
Catering for university students isn’t an easy job – cash-strapped millennials with high expectations for their food having grown up in a world engulfed by social media – somewhat ironic, then, that you’re reading about this in a blog!
Millennials are fed a constant supply of food pictures; Instagram and Pinterest have ensured a seemingly endless stream of aesthetic, hunger-inducing images and whenever a student looks up from their smartphone, they’re surrounded by big brand food operators. It’s no surprise then that university caterers are struggling to keep students eating on site.
Michaela Booth is the catering operations manager at the University of Huddersfield. With the university situated in a large city with competing high street chains, Michaela found many of their students seeking food options elsewhere – that’s where we came in!
Cost effective
The university was keen to provide innovative food concepts that don’t break what are very fragile student piggy banks. Here at Big Al’s, we’re proud to fit this bill; universities can price each of our items competitively as they cook from frozen and don’t need expensive catering equipment or skilled chefs; just a freezer and microwave for storage and cooking.
“It was important my staff don’t need to learn any additional skills to serve up Big Al’s range effectively”, said Michaela, “students here want fresh food quickly and the range was just what they had been crying out for.”
Branding
As a university caterer, you can offer the best tasting, most competitively priced products in a ten-mile radius but without catching the eye of students, it will all be for nothing.
We helped the university refresh its look to attract students previously drawn in by big city brands, but don’t take our word for it! Michaela explained: “Big Al’s branding of the Mill Café has been really well received by students and I firmly believe the look and feel have been greatly improved since Big Al’s Foodie concept was introduced”.
Happy customers
We caught up with a couple of the students at the university of Huddersfield to see what they thought, here’s what two of them had to say:
“Italian Pizza Twists are really handy as they can be taken away or eaten on the way to lectures. They’re much better than sandwiches, particularly in the winter and the chilli beef on jacket potato is anther great option – I’d eat it everyday if I could!”
“The catering team are thinking about what type of food we want to eat and providing it for us. The food looks and tastes just as good as any restaurant on the high street, so we feel we are getting value for money here”
