The team at Café Hope led by Ian Halliday and Trish Edwards recognised that the existing very traditional café menu wasn’t providing customers with exactly what they wanted. The design of the menu was created around main meal type options with four main choices a day this resulted in a lot of waste being generated. A survey within the Café identified that customers wanted lighter choices, and options which enabled them to have a healthier diet.

The new café menu is still a work in progress trial and changes daily. The menu now provides Granola with natural yogurt and fresh fruit, fresh fruit salads and grab and go salads, as well as an extensive salad bar. Sandwiches are moving away from pre packed sandwiches to options of picking your own breads, and then tailor them with your own preference of fillings. Customers can choose to have butter or not and whether to have coleslaw, beetroot, crisps or a healthy salad to accompany it. Panini’s and toasted sandwich can be made with a choice of fillings.

For customers wanting a hot meal, items such as crust-less quiche (made to a slimming world or weight watchers recipe), home made soup  and jacket potatoes with a choice of fillings are available.

The feedback so far from our customers has been really positive, and the pick and mix option of various cheese, fruit pots and crackers is proving popular with customers taking them back to the workplace for later or to eat on the move.

The results of the Pilot so far are positive with increased takings and dramatically reduced waste with very positive comments from customers. So a win all round!!