College campuses are transforming their food offerings, going beyond traditional canteen fare to put colour on the table. From clubs bringing long distance commuters together to sustainable solutions and creative twists on classic dishes, these food initiatives are redefining campus dining and students’ relationships with food.
Sustainable solutions
Commitment to sustainability is a common thread springing up across college campuses, and University College Cork’s (UCC) pioneering Farm to Fork initiative is an exciting example of the work being done in this area.
In an effort to reduce its carbon footprint, the university keeps its food produce as local as possible. Fruit and vegetables used in UCC’s on-campus restaurants are harvested at a farm in nearby Curraheen, run by catering firm Kylemore Services Group (KSG).
The majority of food on offer to students comes through this effort by UCC to reduce its carbon footprint. The university became the first in the world to earn a Green Flag award in 2010, and has since received another four.
Cillian Cashman, general manager of KSG Catering, says the company is working with UCC to explore options that will deepen the impact of the Farm to Fork scheme. “We’re looking to use an anaerobic digester to further reduce our carbon footprint. The idea is that the food waste produced in our kitchen will go back up to our farm and be put into the soil that will make the vegetables to bring back down again,” Cashman says.
According to Cashman “the difference in the quality [of the produce] is just phenomenal”. Students can enjoy a balanced main course meal, paired with a bowl of soup and tea or coffee for €5.30.
Elsewhere, University of Galway has set itself apart as a forerunner in the sustainability circuit, having been awarded the top university in Ireland for sustainable development for three years running. This award by Times Higher Education Impact rankings recognises progress in responding to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
A student of the university, Adam Mullins, has played his part in contributing to these goals by founding the Student Pantry which is “an initiative for food waste distribution and re-education”.
Mullins established a system where food is collected through Food Cloud, a social enterprise which creates links with local supermarkets and companies that have surplus produce.
“All the food we get is either overproduced, short on its ‘sell by’ date or passing or passed it’s ‘best before’ date,” says Mullins, who stocks the pantry himself every Monday and Friday.
“The kind of items we get are anything and everything from yoghurt, ice cream, bananas, chocolate, potatoes, ready-made dinners from Aldi and stuff like that. Literally anything you could buy in Tesco, we get.”
Students are able to avail of this food for free, with the pantry “on track for last year and this year to redistribute €500,000 worth of groceries”, Mullins says. “If we didn’t take it, it would’ve gone to landfill.”
A spokesperson from University of Galway said the college’s Farm to Fork scheme, similar to that in UCC, is being operated by Masterchefs who run “a number of restaurants and cafes on campus”. Masterchefs have a 20-acre farm based in Ballyneety, Co Limerick, where they grow organic vegetables and fruit for use in the university’s kitchens.
On the University of Galway campus itself, various types of food are grown across its “organic garden, herb garden, fruit garden and a variety of fruit trees... along with blackberry bushes growing along the river banks”.
Connecting commuters
Along the western seaboard, Atlantic Technological University (ATU) has set up its own version of The Breakfast Club, aimed at its growing contingent of daily student commuters.
Yvonne Kennedy, the university’s healthy campus co-ordinator who is based on the Sligo campus, says the “social connection” this provides has also become “very popular with our international students”.
“The reason why we opened it originally is because a lot of our students now have to commute and get to campus early. It’s a nice spot for them, if they have arrived early, to maybe decompress before you head off to class and get a little bit to eat. For some people it could be the only food they have in the morning,” Kennedy says.
“A lot of our students could come and commute from Longford every day so for them to maybe make some friends, breakfast club is a way for them to do that.”
From 8.15am on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, students can avail of a selection of cereals and fruit to fuel their busy days ahead.
ATU Sligo’s main canteen, run by O’Hehirs, has “a mix of healthy options and the not so healthy options”. Although there’s a salad bar, this doesn’t always appeal to students – “chips will always be popular, even at 11am in the morning”, Kennedy says.
Cooking up a storm in the classroom
Technological University Dublin’s (TUD) Grangegorman and Tallaght campuses are both home to tailor-made training restaurants for the university’s culinary students. These spaces are open to the public, who can pre-book a ticket and avail of a great value in-house meal. Lecturer James Sheridan advises that it’s important to remember the primary purpose of these centres is learning.
“It’s a very controlled environment ... when we were in Cathal Brugha Street it was like a hidden gem I would say, and was all very local with the same people coming in. We try to give our students some real world learning experiences and part of those is a pop-up restaurant. It’s about pouring all their theory and knowledge into a practical setting,” Sheridan says.
The restaurants operate in tandem with the academic calendar, with lunch tickets ranging from €20-€30 and dinner from €35-€45 per person.
Elevated basics
At Dublin’s largest campus, University College Dublin (UCD), catering company Gather & Gather’s latest food project is represented by The Walkway which opened its doors in September 2024. The restaurant, located by the university’s central Gerard Manley Hopkins Building, has a number of novel offerings, including pasta freshly made in-house.
Pauline Fox, managing director of Gather & Gather, describes the pasta “made using only two simple ingredients – Italian durum wheat and water” as their “standout feature”, while the home-made tiramisu is “a real crowd-pleaser” too. The elevated pasta dishes range from €5-€7, and include orecchiette with broccoli, miso and chilli or radiatori pasta with a Tuscan-inspired beef brisket ragu.
Pizza-by-the-slice is fast becoming a popular lunchtime option too.
In the restaurant’s rotisserie section, dishes are priced between €5-€9. Daily specials here might include balsamic BBQ ribs, chicken Milanese or meatball marinara.
Giving a flavour of what goes on behind the scenes, Fox says: “We brine the chicken in a blend of sea salt, thyme, and lemon zest, handpick and wash salads meticulously, and even make our own gravy stock from the bones of the rotisserie chicken.”
Also in Dublin, the National College of Art and Design’s (NCAD) ever-so-hip subterranean cafe The Goodies is led by Siobhán Byrne, who prides herself on producing healthy options for the college’s students.
“Our food is known to be healthy. I don’t have a deep fryer, I don’t have a microwave, so we don’t do a lot of fried food,” Byrne says.
“We have fun with our menu and do fun things that students might like, but my focus is on healthy food made from lovely ingredients.”
The cafe on Thomas Street serves student lunches with a twist. Accommodating the college’s large cohort of vegetarian and vegan students, Byrne’s menus typically include a soup (€4), novel sandwich options (from €4), a “grain pot”, gourmet sausage rolls (€4) and a selection of baked goods – from carrot cake and banana bread to gluten-free brownies.
To give a flavour of what’s on offer, on one menu the soup of the day could be roasted Jerusalem artichoke with home-made crisps and the “sandwich” option a Vada Pav (battered spiced potato and pea burger).
Student-run social hub
Operated entirely by students, for the students, Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) cafe on Pearse Street offers freshly-made toasties, sandwiches and coffees – served in mugs from their eclectic collection. Their no-frills meal deal comes at the affordable price of €5.50, which includes a toasted sandwich, an americano and either crisps or a bar of chocolate.
Laura Hennessy, one of the cafe‘s student employees, describes the atmosphere of the bustling social hub as “very homey”.
“I think it’s just a nice vibe,” says Hennessy. “It’s hard to find somewhere in town where you can get for sit-in and it’s still under a tenner; that’s kind of unheard of.”
Ordering lunch in Irish earns hungry students a 15 per cent discount, she adds pointing to a poster with some helpful phrases beside the till. The deal is certainly solid motivation to ramp up the cúpla focail.
A recent student council motion was passed to set aside €35,000 in emergency funds for the TCDSU cafe. During the same council meeting, €5,000 was allocated to facilitate and support a similar cafe model in Trinity Hall, the college’s designated accommodation for first-year students located in the South Dublin suburb of Dartry.
TCDSU communications and marketing officer, Beth Strahan, says that “the prioritisation of academic spaces over student respite areas” is a “huge problem” that needs to be addressed by the college.
“What used to be a cafe in the Old Stone Building in St James’s Hospital is now a lecture theatre, with health science students having to eat their lunches on the floor... We are having to pressurise [the] college to take student spaces seriously, and have successfully secured a student centre to open in the old Science Gallery in 2026,” Strahan says.
“This latest funding for the cafe is a step in the right direction to preserve the few student-run spaces that we have on-campus, and continue to provide cheap lunches in Dublin city centre.”
