UHI Inverness opens free food larder for students

UHI Inverness students can now help themselves to free food, including ingredients for a series of online cookery lessons, from a food store known as The Larder that launched this week.

The larder is two open stocked food cupboards in the main campus building and is the latest in a series of initiatives by the college to help ensure students are able to sustain their studies and do not go hungry as a result of the cost of living crisis.

Free breakfast and a free lunch of winter soup and a roll is already available to all students every weekday at both Inverness Campus and the Scottish School of Fostery. Around 650 free breakfasts and 930 free lunches are served to students per week.

The Larder is located in a discrete space behind the Learning Resource Centre in the main UHI Inverness building. It will be open to students to help themselves during campus opening hours.

As well as non-perishable goods, there will be ingredients for a weekly online cooking class hosted by The Cooking Club on zoom.

The Larder is run by Kelly MacKenzie, IT Project Manager at UHI Inverness. She said “We’ve taken delivery of our first food order and the cupboards are fully stocked ready for our students to come along and take what they need.

“We will be placing suggestion cards in The Larder to allow students to let us know if they require particular foods.”

Clare Cousins, a Learning assistant in Supported Education at UHI Inverness, set up The Cooking Club in 2019 as a social enterprise with her friend Karen Castle to make cooking accessible to all. Both qualified occupational therapists, they came up with the idea for the club after becoming frustrated by not having time to engage in meaningful activities with the adults with learning disabilities they were working with.

Clare commented “I moved to Supported Education at UHI Inverness in the autumn of

2019. With the cost-of-living crisis, we thought it important to think about people’s

budgets and provide some ideas for cheap, tasty meals and we linked with The

Larder to provide these cooking-on-a-budget sessions.”

Professor Chris O’Neil, Principal and Chief Executive at UHI Inverness said “it is important to us that students know we are here to help provide them with the essentials that are critical to support their wellbeing and to ensure the cost of living crisis does not disrupt their studies.

“We are pleased to expand our support for students with the introduction of The

Larder, and I would encourage them to take part in the virtual cooking club. It is not

just about providing students with food as fuel, it is about having fun, socialising and

enjoying the activity of communal cooking.”

To book your place in the cooking club lessons, visit: The Virtual Cooking Club -

Cooking on a Budget Tickets, Multiple Dates | Eventbrite

Do you want to respond to this article? If so, click here to submit your thoughts and they may be published in print.