Universities

How does food sourcing in universities work currently?

Universities can choose to do their own procurement or work through The University Caterers Organisation (TUCO), which manages framework contracts for universities nationally and also supports other public sector caterers.  For example, they work with over 200 colleges and recently partnered with LACA.

Most universities have their own in-house catering and a typical TUCO member will source 70% of their food through a TUCO procurement agreement and 30% directly with micro organisations.

TUCO removing the barriers for SMEs

TUCO has worked hard to remove the barriers for SMEs.  Now their supply chain is 83% SMEs.  They were prompted into action by one particular supplier for the University of Manchester, who was a micro business, but the best bidder by far.  They realised that certain criteria were excluding some potentially very good options.  The first criteria to come under scrutiny were the size of company turnover and logistical capacity as well as their geographical coverage.  Some suppliers, like the micro business in question only wanted to serve the local area, but they were very good and competitive at doing that.

Beyond size and geographical coverage TUCO has also addressed some of the other barriers.  The weighting criteria for TUCO frameworks cover quality, price and policies.  Suppliers need to have quality assurance, be a member STS for food safety, and also evidence their sustainability.  To ensure a level playing field for SMEs, TUCO has partnered with Net Positive to help smaller suppliers evidence sustainability. Often they are doing all the right things, but haven’t been accredited. TUCO pays for them to go through the process.

Simply Lunch is a Food to Go manufacturer, who really cares where their ingredients come from.  Of their 500 ingredients, 80% are sourced from within the UK.  They started working with a couple of universities, but quickly discovered that the universities wanted them to be a TUCO approved supplier.  At the time Simply Lunch held the recognised SALSA accreditation, which gave reassurance to the members of the framework that they worked to good food safety and quality standards.  Simply Lunch are now one of the leading Food-to-Go suppliers on the TUCO frameworks and this growth supported their business decision a few years back to obtain the highly regarded BRC Global standard for food safety which they now hold at grade AA.  They benefited as a smaller supplier from the acceptance of SALSA by TUCO, but with the introduction of Natasha’s Law and the ongoing focus on food safety within a high risk category now think there should be more focus on larger suppliers of the Food to Go framework to obtain the BRC standard triggered by turnover.

Consolidating compliance through TUCO

Many universities encourage their suppliers to become approved TUCO suppliers if they aren’t already.  As Phil Rees-ones, Deputy Director of Estates and Campus Facilities for Cardiff University explains:  “We introduce our local suppliers to TUCO frameworks because then we know they will be adhering to our compliance reulations.  TUCO also manages their performance for us.  It takes a good chunk of work off our in-house procurement team.”

The same is true of the University of Exeter.  They wanted to continue working with a local butcher.  Indeed, they might have put the butcher out of business if they ceased to work with them, so they put them in touch with TUCO to ensure a compliant route-to-market.

Each university will have roughly 15 frameworks with spend over the EU spend threshold to undergo the full tender process.  Typically, 15 contracts require three full time members of staff for performance management and auditing.  TUCO consolidates that bureaucracy into frameworks that span multiple universities while still providing the flexibility for each university to work with local suppliers, who often are a lot more agile and able to adapt to any requests from universities to change.

Supplier introductions

Some suppliers TUCO will introduce to national distributors like Bidfood to encourage supply through them.  TUCO also runs an annual summer conference for up to 100 exhibition stands for 200 delegates over two days.  To encourage SME attendance they have created smaller one-man stands that are less costly.  Beyond this there are regular regional meetings, which suppliers can attend?  According to Phil Rees-Jones, one of the most effective ways for suppliers to grow their business through TUCO is via an endorsement in a regional meeting.

Working closely with local suppliers to source local produce

Ivan Hokins, Head of Catering & Hospitality at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) is clearly passionate about local sourcing.  Around 10 years ago he noticed that despite all the farms in Nottinghamshire, the university was sourcing carrots from Glasgow.  He approached the university procurement team and they started to look at the Food For Life Served Here scheme as a standard to work towards.  Browsing the Bronze level criteria, Ivan initially thought it would be impossible. There were so many numbers you had to calculate that it seemed impossible, but then he realised that they were actually fulfilling a lot of the criteria already, they just weren’t calculating them and reaping the rewards.

They now work with two distributors Millside-Barrowcliffe primarily for fruit and vegetables, and Owen-Taylor for meat.  All the meat from Owen-Taylor comes from within a 50 mile radius and they have worked closely with Millside-Barrowcliffe to increase the amount of produce they source from local farms.  This local ethic has since helped Millside-Barrowcliffe win other local contracts and they now supply more than 800 schools as well as several hospitals.  For bread NTU works with Luke Evans, a family-run East Midlands bakery.

The University of Sheffield has developed a close relationship with a Yorkshire supplier of milk and ice-cream, Our Cow Molly.  Previously all the milk they sourced was produced in Yorkshire, but had to be transported to London to be pasteurised and bottled.  By offering an exclusive deal to Our Cow Molly to all their 19 cafes, they have enabled Our Cow Molly to expand their maximum weekly output from 8,000 to 40,000 litres and invest in a new £500,000 dairy, which means all their milk is now produced, pasteurised and bottled in Yorkshire.  The milk is processed and delivered on the same day. In addition, Our Cow Molly has collaborated on university research into nutrition surrounding selenium within a cow’s diet.

Supplier-led initiatives

Not everything has to come from the buyer.  M&J Seafood has come up with their own initiatives to access public sector catering.  It starts with a clear passion for sustainable fish.  They started trading with TUCO in 2012 and, as a result of joining the TUCO framework, were able to grow their sales 24-fold by 2019.  Now 35-40% of what TUCO buys through M&J Seafood is UK sourced.  A lot of that had to do with engaging university caterers on their sustainability credentials, educating them on what was possible to achieve locally and sustainably for the price point they wanted.  As a business M&J Seafood has a policy of not stocking Marine Conservation Society level 5 fish, which are considered endangered.  They would also produce a regular Marine Stewardship Council list to demonstrate the origin and sustainability of the fish they sold to TUCO.  M&J Seafood are now part of Sysco Speciality Group, a family of speciality businesses that enables collective access, expertise and shared best practice to fulfil more large-scale tenders and best serve their customers no matter how big or small.