Catering Services cooks up a national prize!

Edge Hill University's Catering Services Department has received a national award for the quality of its fare.

The team won the Best Menu prize in an annual competition organised by major food distributor Blakemore Food Services.

Last year, the University was a runner-up in the awards but this year took the top prize beating off competition from 200 other entrants, including educational institutions, pubs, restaurants and conference centres. The judges looked at a variety of criteria, including menu choice for both internal and external functions, menu diversity, the number and quality of catering outlets, locally sourced ingredients, and value for money.

The award was presented to Conference Administrator Nicola Kenny at a gala evening in Leicestershire.

Bill Hancox, Operations Manager in Facilities Management, said: "The Catering Services Department, along with our colleagues in Facilities Management, are proud to try to bring our staff, students and visitors the best in customer service. We are very pleased to win this award which recognises the hard work of all our teams in the many and varied food outlets across the campus."

The University has a wide and varied choice of eateries. The Terrace and Waters Edge are the main venues for staff and students. Others are located through the faculty and administration buildings, including Grinders, Chambers, the Garden Cafe and Cafe Rewind. Fast food fans can eat at The Diner, which sources its food wholly from a local supplier in Skelmersdale, while the Senior Common Room remains popular with staff. Formal dinners are hosted in Sages, which is also available for weddings and external events. Its kitchen has been refurbished to enable the team to bring sandwich-making in-house -100,000 prepacked sandwiches were bought in by the University last year but it is hoped that, within the next four months, 70% of these can be produced on campus. Another new initiative is the installation of modern coffee machines across the site in February.

Kevin Taylor, Catering Procurement Officer, added: "Over the past two years we have gone from a 50% satisfaction rate up to just over 90%. We are happy with this progress but all know that we can't stand still and that we have to keep evolving and improving."