Helping students share experiences through food at CAFRE
The College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise (CAFRE) is committed to the development of the necessary people, technologies and systems required for the continuing growth of the agri-food industry. It operates from 3 campuses based at Enniskillen, Greenmount near Antrim and Loughry near Cookstown, with approximately 1,000 students in total.
Mount Charles provides a high-quality catering service which is utilised by students, CAFRE staff and visitors alike across the three campuses. Our provision extends to cover breakfast, lunch, dinner and daily breaks within the restaurant and coffee shop facilities which is supported by strong marketing, promotion and loyalty offers. Additionally, we provide a hospitality service, catering for commercial events, College open days and special events as requested. Our offering is one which focuses on offering healthy and nutritional options, embracing local produce and suppliers whilst enjoyable and tasty. Further, we provide a number of vending and beverage machines throughout the campuses to support students/staff working remotely from the main catering units.
A catering service is required for breakfast, morning break, lunch, afternoon break, and evening meal at Greenmount, Loughry and Enniskillen for students, staff and visitors. In addition the restaurant is open from 08.30 AM – 5.00 PM each day for a casual tea / coffee service. Mount Charles provides a light snack and beverage service to customers as required throughout the day/evening. In addition, function catering is required on an ad hoc basis, for example working breakfasts, lunches, buffets, dinners etc. The scale of this business is dependent upon the degree of hospitality required by management, the attractiveness of the College facilities and the quality of the catering services offered to external organisations wishing to hold conferences or meetings.
Urban Square
Mount Charles has provided services to CAFRE since 2017 and following a successful re-tendering exercise in 2022 has secured the contract for a further five years. As part of the re-mobilisation of the contract we introduced a new catering brand for CAFRE – Urban Square.
In a world of smartphones and electronic devices that are constantly pulling our attention to screens, there has never been more of a need to help people to engage, discuss and get back to what communal eating used to be – a shared experience. Our objective is to promote Urban Square as a destination venue for students, CAFRE staff and visitors alike, an integral part of everyday campus life. The brand has been specifically developed by our in-house Marketing Team and is a perfect fit for Greenmount, Loughry and Enniskillen’s main restaurant facilities, offering traditional and healthy home comforts with a modern twist.
Pop-ups
In addition to the core offering, we have introduced Pop ups to include Flat Earth (on trend, global flat bread menu, serving a variety of flat breads (including a gluten free option), Poke (Cone filled with brown rice, lean meat and grilled veg), Brochette (the good kebab) and Toastie (Traditional Toastie with healthy fillings).
Healthy and nutritionally balanced eating is encouraged by offering affordable and attractive healthy menu items, special deals, offers and meal deals alike. Our menus collectively offer low-cost healthy options, vegetarian, vegan, pescatarian, gluten free and low carb meals and cater for as many customers dietary requirements as possible. We offer a selection of specials and promotions to promote and maintain interest throughout the year, all of which are tailored to CAFRE’s unique student demographic.
Cyber Café/Coffee Dock – Urban Square Coffee Co.
In tandem with the Urban Square Food Co. offer is a distinctive and complimentary coffee offer, Urban Square Coffee Co. We collaborate with our local coffee suppliers ‘Johnsons’ (based in Lisburn) to ensure that at every stage of production we treat the product with care. We place an emphasis on great beans, state of the art equipment and, importantly, professional barista training – all this investment goes into every cup and makes a real difference. All coffee, hot beverages, chocolate, snacks, and the wider ingredients used by our catering team and our suppliers are verified as Fairtrade products, supporting our obligations as a responsible service provider.
Hospitality Services – Square to Share
We take great pride in our hospitality service, and we ensure the same passion and effort goes into every style of hospitality; from internal informal meetings requiring tea, coffee and biscuits or a sandwich platter through to large formal events, corporate dinners and external business and conferences. Our hospitality package for CAFRE is tailored fully to the College’s unique needs, event requirements and in full consideration of all environmental/sustainable objectives. We have created an innovative menu pack for CAFRE which offers an appetising mix of breakfast, lite bite lunch, working lunch and corporate dining all of which will be fulfilled by our ‘Square to Share’ hospitality offering and experienced culinary personnel.
As a sustainable and responsible provider, we are fully committed to the Single Use Plastic Reduction Action Plan and in aid of this, we utilise re-usable crockery and cutlery throughout our contracts, working in line with the College’s policy and objectives to reduce the environmental impact of our hospitality and catering services. We have worked proactively with our waste management partner (McQuillan Environmental) in respect of all waste generated by our services, and we have successfully achieved zero to landfill for CAFRE across its campuses since 2017. We are committed to maintaining our obligations and status of zero to landfill and will continue to embrace new innovation, technology and processes to support this.
