Our commitment means offering dishes that cater to a wide range of dietary, lifestyle, and religious needs while also serving food designed to boost physical and mental health. Sustainability plays a central role in every decision, ensuring that the food choices available across campus are lowering carbon footprints and helping the King’s community take meaningful climate action.
A major part of this shift is the growing focus on plant-forward eating. Around 70% of the meals you’ll find on campus are now plant‑based, built around whole, minimally processed, globally inspired ingredients that offer flavour as well as nutritional benefits.
This change comes with practical, impactful decisions such as removing meat from menus and switching dairy milk for plant-based milk.
It’s not just everyday meals that are changing; big campus events have moved entirely to plant‑based catering, saving significant amounts of CO₂ each year and helping to reduce the university’s overall environmental impact.
Another innovative initiative reshaping how King’s Food works is the Root‑to‑Tip Dining project. Instead of letting commonly discarded ingredients such as pineapple skins or leek roots go to waste, King’s chefs use them creatively to develop nutritious, exciting dishes.
This approach not only reduces food waste and encourages culinary experimentation but also promotes healthier eating by increasing the fibre content of meals; a key focus highlighted through Root‑to‑Tip recipe development, which has been shown to boost fibre intake. What makes this project especially meaningful is the collaboration behind it: chefs, academic experts, and student researchers work together to rethink how food can be sustainable, delicious, and nutritionally beneficial, all while offering students unique dishes they may not encounter elsewhere
King’s Food’s commitment to change has also gained global recognition. The university recently joined the Menus of Change University Research Collaborative (MCURC), a network of more than 70 institutions dedicated to shaping healthier, more sustainable food systems in higher education. Becoming part of this collaborative marks a major milestone that took several years of work. The membership strengthens the connections between King’s Food, nutrition scientists, and students, allowing campus dining to act as a living test space for research, innovation, and evidence-based decision-making.
Looking ahead, King’s Food is continuing to build on this momentum with other projects with college researchers.
Whether you’re jumping into Veganuary, making small steps toward healthier habits, or simply looking for tasty meals that align with your values, King’s Food is committed to supporting your journey. Together, the King’s community is proving that delicious food can also be climate‑friendly and that meaningful change can start with the choices we make every day.