The Russell Partnership:  case studies:  Nutrition:  Loughborough:

Loughborough University

Loughborough University contacted The Russell Partnership for help in establishing a healthy food policy for their students and to assist with staff training in nutrition. The University’s strong sporting ethos meant that they were more aware than most about the value of healthy eating and had already made commendable efforts to provide transparent nutrition information about their food offers on their website. The Partnership’s first action was to conduct a Nutritional Audit on the catered halls and campus food offers in order to ascertain current standards and highlight areas for improvement. Four different criteria were assessed:

• Menu balance and nutrient value
• Ingredient selection and preparation
• Menu variety and suitability for special diets
• Staff and customer awareness

Loughborough achieved an overall score of 54% upon initial inspection in January 2007, which fell short of the 75% threshold for gaining Food for the Brain accreditation but which gave Executive Chef Mark Price and his team a clear framework of actions required in order to gain this prestigious award. The audit chiefly highlighted the need to reduce the use of processed items such as ready made soups, sauces and dressings, which contain large amounts of artificial additives and preservatives such as undesirable E numbers and hydrogenated fats. Steps were taken to address this and other recommendations made in the audit report and considerable improvements in food quality were seen upon re-inspection in November 2007, when accreditation was achieved with a highly commendable score of 80%.

Loughborough also took on board the need for staff training in order to ensure consistent delivery of healthy choices and in order to engender enthusiasm for the project. A series of half day workshops were run by The Russell Partnership on site in order to allow both kitchen and front of house staff and management to be trained in Nutrition in Practice.