Student food enterprises

In partnership with the National Union of Students (NUS), Sustain has supported the creation of food co-ops and food preserving enterprises on university and college campuses across the UK. These stories provide information on some of these inspiring student-led initiatives.

As part of the National Lottery Community Fund’s Our Bright Future programme, NUS Student Eats (with partners Sustain and the Soil Association) has helped establish over 60 new student-led food-based social enterprises, 30 of these have been supported by Sustain with training and mentoring. By the end of 2020 the Student Eats enterprise project aims to have improved the employability skills of over 2500 students, improved understanding of sustainable food and pro-environmental behaviour, diverted over 10 tonnes of surplus food from landfill and enabled over £150,000 worth of sustainable food to be traded locally. 

If you are interested in setting up a student-led food co-op or food preserving enterprise the following can help you get started:

• Food co-op toolkit
• A student guide to community food enterprises
• Follow @foodcoops on Twitter to see what are other students are doing
• Email Tilly Jarvis, Food Co-op Project Coordinator

Read the stories