Bucks Students’ Union and Buckinghamshire New University launch new partnership for campus catering and hospitality
At Bucks Students’ Union we’re really excited to be working ever more closely with our parent institution. Amongst a whole host of exciting projects is a new partnership which sees us running catering and hospitality across our campuses.
From 1st September the Students’ Union will relaunch the café at the heart of the High Wycombe Campus as ‘The Kitchen’, offering freshly prepared hot and cold food and a wide selection of snacks and drinks.
We’re bringing Costa Coffee to Beeches with pricing that’s favourable to the high street alongside a full range of breakfast and lunch options from a Full English and freshly baked pastries in the morning to meal deals starting at £2.49, hot lunches, the salad bar and regular specials throughout the day.
We’ll be working to improve the pricing and range to make the on-campus dining experience as accessible as possible for everyone in our community and meeting all dietary requirements.
This move allows us to retain a great deal of money within the University system, providing greater resources to support students. It will also help us create more paid work opportunities for students and will put an additional £50k of income into our students’ pockets across the year.
We’ll also be able to use the café space in Beeches and the Winter Garden for an exciting range of activities, events and evening catering to better support student groups, making the fantastic facility an even greater asset to the BNU community.
The Students’ Union will continue to develop an internal hospitality offer and, with our new team, will be able to service all the University’s requirements working closely with BNU colleagues in the Estates and Events teams. This includes the exciting developments at the Brunel Engine Shed, adjacent to High Wycombe train station, which will also house a coffee and snack bar ready for the autumn.
The Lounge in the Students’ Union venue remains open serving all your favourites based on ‘home comforts’ and a contemporary pub menu and we are switching our coffee offer up as we welcome Starbucks onto campus.
Pulse at Uxbridge will re-introduce Costa Coffee and a whole new range of meal deals, as well as a new hot meal offer, and we can’t wait to hear your ideas about how you’d like us to develop the café. Please email hwcater@bnu.ac.uk to share your views as we would love to hear your feedback.
All our cost-of-living free meals will continue to be funded by the University as before, and we will always make eating on campus as affordable as possible.
Alongside all this, we are working with the University on plans to transform The Garden Café in the Gateway into a commuter kitchen and to develop a campus kitchen with free refreshments at the Basin café on our Aylesbury Campus as the facility is taken in a different direction.
We are confident that these developments represent a really positive improvement for students and staff alike, and the new arrangements open up a whole range of possibilities.