TUCO chair Amanda Pettingill said: “These awards celebrate teamwork and also the individuals who might not always be standing over a stove each day, but who work hard to create an innovative catering operation that gets results and creates customer loyalty.”
She said the carbon footprint of the awards – in fact the whole conference event - had been calculated by My Emissions at 83 tonnes and TUCO would now plant 83 trees nearby as part of an carbon offset effort – one tree for every tonne. The awards event was sponsored by Carlsberg Britvic.
The chair’s charity this year was the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, which was chosen by Amanda because Bethany Holloway, the best friend of Natasha who was with her on the plane the day she died, recently completed her studies at Nottingham University where Amanda works. A charity raffle at the awards dinner raised £4,040 for NARF.
The full list of winners for 2025 is:
- Innovation Award: Reboot Cafe - Queen's University Belfast
- Rising Star Award: Ollie Bierton - University of Sheffield
- Sustainability Award: Catering Team - Harper Adams University
- TUCO Member of the Year: Loughborough University
- TUCO Team of the Year: Food and Drink Team - University of Leicester
- Outstanding Achievement Award: Alan Riddell, retired from the University of St Andrews and who stepped down from the TUCO board in 2024