Public Sector Catering are hosting PBW to encourage caterers across the public sector in schools, hospitals, care homes, universities, prisons and the military to embrace plant-based foods.
Public sector caterers have to respond to the increasing demand from their customers while continuing to meet nutritional standards and provide a balanced diet that includes meat and dairy.
At the University of Essex the Zest plant-based pop-up has a variety of muffins for people to try such as carrot & pineapple, pear, pecan & cranberry, peach & cranberry and chocolate.
Gareth, a chef at the pop-up café, unveiled his recipe for his plant-based bao buns. He said: “I was really happy with the results. The tofu absorbed all of the marinade and tasted amazing with the crunchy, pickled veg.”
On Essex Food Instagram account senior health and fitness supervisor James discussed ‘top tips’ of how to introduce more plant-based foods into your diet.
Elisa Aylott, head of catering and events at the University of Essex, commented: “Our University has declared a climate emergency at the end of last year. This was the first step for the University signalling change was required in our approach to sustainability.
“We in Essex Food have decided that we very much want to be part of this process and embrace the role we have got to play by setting examples for our students, staff and campus community.
“We thought Plant Based Week would be a perfect opportunity to trial a plant based pop-up café, showcasing just how delicious plant based food can be, whilst also having wider benefits such as being more sustainable and healthy.
“We are hoping to engage with students, get their feedback with the view that this is a longer term plan not just a trend or fad. We are planning to establishing a plant based café in one of our outlets for the next academic year and this was a great opportunity to gauge interest and understand what our customers really would like to see to be part of our offer.”