Making healthy choices easy

Since early summer, planning, renovation and refurbishment has been underway at Jord, a brand new mini-market in the old kiosk space by the Bakkenteigensalen on Campus Vestfold. Soft drinks and energy drinks have been replaced by smoothies, freshly pressed juices and kombucha, and sausages and pizza are replaced by salads, porridge and local fruit and vegetables.

– We think the students and staff at Campus Vestfold are ready for this, says Harald Nesse, food and beverage manager at SSN and the driving force behind the project.

– You can still buy pizza and energy drinks in our other eateries, but here at Jord we are making it very easy for you to make the healthy choice, he continues.

A green thread from Jord to the USN Spire

At the small market stand outside Jord you can find seasonal fruit and vegetables. Ultimately, the idea is that herbs and other vegetables that are easy to grow in the university's own garden can either be sold or used in the food served at Jord. Jord is in dialogue with USN Spire, which has been running the somewhat "secret" teaching garden at Åsgård (just a few steps away from Jord) on the Vestfold campus for about two years.

- When we go shopping for food, we think about what we want and then go to the shop and buy it. It wasn't like that before, and maybe we should practise to bring back the old way of thinking: Buy the vegetables that have been harvested and make something with them, or look at what we already have in the fridge and THEN think about what to make, says Susanne Moen Ouff, who is the project manager in USN Spire and an Associate Professor (at the Faculty of Humanities, Sports and Educational Sciences, Department of Outdoor Recreation, Sports and Physical Education at USN Campus Vestfold).

Read more about the garden at Campus Vestfold (site in Norwegian only).

Recycling at a high level

It's not just the food and drink that are green at Jord, the packaging, or lack of packaging, is also as green as possible.

– At SSN we are working hard to reduce the use of disposable packaging in our restaurants. We are testing different types of glass packaging as it is the only material that is 100% recyclable, but we rely on our customers to return the cups after use to keep consumption down, says Harald and continues:

– At Jord, coffee is never served in paper cups that are thrown away after use, in which case it must be a reusable paper cup that you bring with you! You can either bring your own cup or choose a reusable cup from the shelf by the coffee machine. If you find a cup you like, you can buy it!

The interior of Jord is also characterised by reuse; all the furniture in the shop is either reused from the kiosk that was on the premises, things that Harald found in the warehouse, or finds from finn.no. The old handles on the cupboards weren't replaced with new ones because they didn't match, but were sanded down, spray-painted and reassembled.

Aiming for zero food waste

The new mini-market will sell food and drink based on green, locally sourced ingredients. The food you buy will either be prepared by the chefs in the mother ship Alimento (the canteen on the floor above) or in Jord, and any leftovers will end up in a smoothie, the salad bar, the hot counter or the soup kettle in Alimento. Leftover food that cannot be used for new meals can go into the bokashi bucket in the teaching garden and become nutritious fertiliser in the flower beds.

– We're looking forward to many 'green' conversations with staff and students, and to developing Jord throughout the semester, based on what our customers want, say Harald and Nyagoa (who is the person you'll most often meet behind the counter at Jord).