Director and Deputy Director of Student Experience Dr. Rashaad Shabab and Dr. Seun Osituyo

Recipe bags were made by the Student Experience team and handed out to students

Orzo pasta made from one of the recipe meal kits

Earlier this month, staff from the Student Experience Team in the Business School welcomed our new and returning students by handing out free recipe meal kits. Each kit contained all the dried goods needed to make a delicious meal for four, along with a small list of additional fresh ingredients to be supplied by the students.

The idea behind this initiative was to encourage students to socially interact with each other and provide a healthy, affordable, and nutrient-rich meal they can easily recreate in the future.

Students met the Director and Deputy Director of Student Experience (DoSE) for the Business School Dr. Rashaad Shabab, who provided a traditional family daal recipe and Dr. Seun Osituyo, who offered a tomato and orzo pasta recipe. Both were on hand to chat with students, hand out recipe bags and welcome them to university life.

At the popular event, over 400 bags were given out in just over two hours. We received resoundingly positive feedback from students, with almost 80% reporting that the recipe bag had enabled them to share a meal with someone, and 84% saying it had helped them to spend time with people they wouldn't have done otherwise. It was a pleasure to see such a simple initiative bringing cohorts together, with hopes for more events like this in the future.