“Those prices have to go down. Students can’t afford to eat at the canteens,” said student Liam Geschwindt in an earlier interview. About a year ago, he started a petition to bring the prices down, but without success. Appèl, caterer of almost all canteens on campus, indicated at the time that they were working on several improvements. Some of these have been implemented, but a price reduction isn’t one of them.

Sustainability

According to Ten Cate, the current prices are mainly due to the caterer’s sustainability goals, which TU/e itself is also pursuing. “As a caterer, we have an obligation to make certain efforts in the areas of health, sustainability, protein transition, and CO2 reduction.” In practice, that means, for example, using only meat with Topkeurmerken (approved quality marks), buying more protein products, and offering a wide range of vegetarian and vegan options. “As a result, we have to buy more expensive produce,” Ten Cate says.

According to Ten Cate, places like Hubble and the Sports Café are able to offer cheaper dishes because they don’t have to meet all of these targets. “They can therefore use other, cheaper ingredients. Because we achieve our objectives, it reduces our purchasing options and reduces our target market,” he explains. “If I were to sell fries and burgers at MetaForum tomorrow, the place would be packed out. But that’s not in line with our goals.”

The Sports Café states that Ten Cate's claim is incorrect and that they, too, adhere to TU/e’s sustainability policy. “The Student Sports Café at the SSC is a ‘Home away from Home’ for all our national and international students and staff,” writes SSC Hospitality Manager Joyce Schonenburg in a written response. “In that context, we strive to offer our audience healthy and affordable meals, including a significant share of vegetarian meals and vegan options, to promote a healthy lifestyle among our students. To ensure accessibility for all students, we consciously choose a low-profit margin. Naturally, as part of TU/e, we also adhere to TU/e’s sustainability policy.” Hubble has not yet been able to respond to the statement.

Despite the additional challenges involved, he’s positive about the extra focus on sustainability. “These guidelines weren’t just imposed on us by TU/e; we at Appèl have the same kind of goals. That is precisely why we’re such a good match with TU/e.”

Appèl, incidentally, doesn’t appear to be equally sustainable in all areas. The Subway in Auditorium, for example, also falls under their responsibility. “The Subway is definitely not sustainable, but it’s about the average sustainability of all our locations on campus taken together,” Ten Cate says. “What we lose at Subway sustainability-wise, we have to make up for somewhere else.”

Sales up

That prices are a hot topic is also illustrated by the discussion sessions organized by the caterer. TU/e students can give input to the caterer during these sessions. “The price is always a prominent topic of discussion there,” Ten Cate says. “It’s perceived as too high.”

But despite the fact that the TU/e community thinks Appèl’s prices are too high, people are buying more and more. “We see that our sales are up 15 percent compared to the same period last year. And hot meal sales have even doubled,” he says. “If it turns out that we can maintain that increase in sales, is it really necessary to do something about pricing? So at the moment, we’re not planning to lower prices.”

Larger portions

Ten Cate attributes this increase mainly to recent improvements in the quality and quantity of the range they care. “For example, during discussion sessions we were often told that our portions were considered small, so we made them larger,” he explains.

“We also scrutinized the composition and variety of our dishes. For example, we started working in menu cycles, we added more hot meals to our range, and we’re also working hard to find the right mix between traditional and international lunch options.” According to Ten Cate, they’re still perfecting these changes, but things are moving in the right direction.

And this positive trend also seems to be the reason why – for now – nothing will change in terms of pricing. “We first wanted to improve the quantity and quality. And now we’re seeing increased sales, so we think we’re doing well now. If prices still prove to be such a stumbling block in the future, then we can have another look at our options. But right now there’s no reason to change anything in that regard.”

New discussion sessions will take place in 2025, on January 20 and February 3 (both Mondays) to be exact.TU/e students can sign up for these sessions by sending an email to aaleksanjan@appel.nl.