Inclusive catering in practice

These are all important topics to WUR staff and students, as was also evident during the Bitterbal dialogue on 4 April in Impulse, where staff, students and caterers discussed the future of WUR restaurants.

Workforce potential

To start with people with a distance to the labour market. They represent a large, untapped labour potential for organisations. According to estimates by CBS, it concerns about 1.3 million people in the Netherlands. WUR's caterers are happy to dedicate themselves to this target group. Such as Compass, which provides catering in the restaurants in Forum, Orion and Leeuwenborch.

Esther van Seters, community manager of Compass explains: 'We work together with Jops to create a sustainable workplace for people with disabilities. In addition, we work together with The Colour Kitchen to guide, develop and train people with a distance to the labour market. We do this to guide untapped talent towards a paid job.' Michel van Vlaanderen is head chef at Orion Restaurant. He gives a concrete example of what this looks like in practice. 'Two employees with a disability work in my kitchen. It’s important they feel welcome with me, just like all the other employees we employ.'

Diversity is important

At Impulse, OSP (Vermaat Groep) works with employees from this target group on a daily basis. 'I like working at OSP because the work is varied,' says apprentice chef Sara. 'I also get lots of freedom and responsibility, which allows me to use my creativity.'

Sara's story fits perfectly with OSP's philosophy, for whom diversity in teams is extremely important. 'Different backgrounds and experiences lead to different ideas', says Dax Moens of OSP. 'If everyone dares to share these ideas and listens to each other, creativity will be bubbling and you really gain new insights.' Speaking of great stories, Manuel works every day for MAAS, the supplier of all the coffee machines. Manuel is responsible for the maintenance, cleaning and refilling of these coffee machines. 'He started with 4 hours a day,' says Vera Verberne of MAAS, 'but it's going so well that Manuel now wants to work 5 hours a day. Together with proper guidance, we’ll see if this is possible.’

Ideal guidance by Harrie

Compass and Omnia caterer Hutten (who also employs Jops employees) both say that inclusion as a core value occasionally presents some practical challenges. 'Good guidance is needed', says Esther. 'And sometimes the pace of work is a little slower.' In order to offer such guidance properly, Jacco de Waal van Hutten recently followed a Harrie training course at UWV. 'Harrie is the ideal person to guide people with a distance to the labour market. Harrie is a Dutch acronym, and stands for Helpful, Alert, Realistic, Calm, Instructive and Honest.'

Different food cultures

Inclusion also means paying attention to the enormous variety of food cultures. Van Vlaanderen explains how Compass does this in Orion. 'We offer international dishes every day, such as poké bowls, street food and wok dishes. We also try to make something for everyone, and prepare meat, vegetarian and vegan meals.' At the beginning of this year, Hutten hired a new chef: Djoelan Bovenschen. A big advantage is that he has travelled a lot and has countless experiences in the field of cooking abroad. 'For me, it's a great joy to bring different flavours and cultures together on one plate,' says Djoelan.

Increasingly inclusive

Affordability also remains an important topic. This was also evident during the Bitterbal dialogue on 4 April. Because what is affordable and what can you expect from a caterer for a certain price? Compass has a budget range called 'Basket'. It contains, for example, affordable and topped sandwiches and also loose sandwiches and toppings. In the short term, Compass will expand the Basket range to meet the wish for lower-priced items that came to the fore during the Bitterbal dialogue. ‘We also offer a hot meal every day for only € 5.95,' says Esther. Compass is happy to continue to talk to the WUR community to see if the range offered meets the various needs.

Future

There are plenty of plans for the future at all the organisations. For example, Compass has started a trial with Trash'ure cakes, which are made by refugees from rescued fruit and vegetables. But above all, all parties want to work even more closely with WUR to make catering increasingly inclusive. The final word on this will be given to Sjoerd van den Berk, job director at WUR. 'I see that the people who are at a distance from the labour market and now work at WUR are really enjoying themselves and are well supervised. Of course, this is preceded by a careful matching procedure by Jops. We try to assess whether someone fits in that position and with that team. That's important because you want people to have a positive experience so that they grow as people and employees.'

What does the WUR vision say about inclusion?

To increase social impact, WUR requires its partners to embrace inclusion as a core value. In addition to the sustainable integration of people on the sidelines (social return), there must also be space for the needs of different target groups, cultures and eating preferences. In addition, WUR believes it is important that the hospitality industry is accessible to persons with disabilities and provides an inviting and safe atmosphere.