New coffee machines: no to plastic cups, yes to oat milk

WUR’s contracts for coffee machines with Jacob Douwe Egberts and Maas are expiring. Maas won the tender for new machines and will supply all the coffee machines on campus from 1 July.

The new machines will have ‘the appropriate upgrades’, says Marcha Sperna Weiland, Food and Beverage contract manager at Facilities & Services. ‘They will all serve freshly ground coffee, for example.’ Besides regular milk for the cappuccino, coffee drinkers will soon be able to choose oat milk, a plantbased alternative aimed at contributing to the protein transition.

Also, the machines will no longer dispense plastic cups, unlike the Jacob Douwe Egberts machines that are still in the education buildings. The arrival of the new coffee machines coincides with the introduction of new Single Use Plastic (SUP) legislation. From 1 July, no free disposable cups may be provided for refreshments ‘to go’ and from 1 January 2024, that will also apply in places where refreshments are consumed on the spot, as is the case with office vending machines.

‘Our goal is to have only reusable cups in use,’ says Sperna Weiland. ‘Although we still have to look into what changes need to be made in each building. There aren’t dishwashers everywhere, for instance, and we can’t install them overnight everywhere.’

A large tender for the campus catering is also currently underway. From the summer, a single company will provide the catering in Orion, Forum, Aurora, Leeuwenborch and Atlas. lz

See also pages 23 and 26.