Thrifty Chef Box is a volunteer project started up by a group of students at Newcastle University, who have undertaken a side hustle helping students by creating budget friendly recipe boxes.
Based on the Newcastle University campus right outside the student union, they sell boxes of two different meals, recipes included, for £3.
I spoke to Henry Nicholson, who studies food business management and marketing at Newcastle University and gives his time to help by creating recipes and selling food boxes.
With the intention of reducing food waste, they collect a range of excess vegetables each week from Hector Hall in Grainger Market, create recipes from what they have available, and box up ingredients to sell on to students.
Some of their go to recipes include:
- Squash puttanesca pasta
- Aubergine and pepper tagine
- Broccoli stir fry
I picked up a box myself which contained ingredients to make a roasted cauliflower in romesco sauce dish. The kit contained ingredients to put together two full meals. To have bought all the ingredients individually, this would have cost roughly £10.
The BBC published a study conducted in 2015, that concluded only 1 in 5 students uphold healthy eating habits whilst at university. I spoke to Tom Shore who studies at Newcastle University, and has recently discovered Thrifty Chef, about his experience with eating at university and relationship with food preparation. He told me that he is saving time and money and that overall, the ingredient boxes are great value.
“I’ve been trying to eat healthier at uni and [Thrifty Chef] have helped me get my diet back on track”.
Tom Shore – Student
With each box comes an information pack which informs you about storage, allergens, nutritional information and energy saved. This appears alongside cooking, ingredients and equipment instructions to provide receivers with the information they will need to prepare each dish.
Thrifty Chef box prioritise sustainability and food waste as their core principles. In the UK, 9.5 million tonnes of food is wasted every year which is a large contributing factor to global warming as food waste produces methane, 25 times more harmful than carbon dioxide. Millions of pounds worth of food, such as bread, milk and potatoes are wasted each year.
With the intention of providing students with cooking skills and portion control, Thrifty Chef use their knowledge of nutrition and business skills to provide students with healthy, budget friendly food boxes, and two guaranteed meals a week.
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