Zero waste dishes challenge Culinary Arts students

The offer of “free food” is always a good call to action, and two pop-up food markets hosted by second year Bachelor of Culinary Arts students proved a great success.

The students recently completed a zero waste systems paper and were challenged with preparing and serving hundreds of portions of delicious plant-based street food for ākonga and kaimahi to try.

The free food pop-ups were held in the Manaaki Courtyard over two consecutive Thursday lunchtimes, with guests encouraged to give feedback to help the culinary students refine their dishes and delivery between the two events.

Senior lecturer Tim Lynch says the students served around 450 portions of food in the first market (‘sold out’ in 30 minutes), increasing to around 750 portions for the second event, with dishes including deep-fried sushi rolls, open sandwiches, and Mexican tacos.

“Students had to explore the stakeholders and associated supply chains connected to the ingredients they use,” says Tim.

“As part of this process, students also analyse their production systems, considering how to reduce environmental impact and overall footprint, while still delivering dishes that are visually compelling and high in quality.”

All the food served was entirely vegan, which senior lecturer Juliane Tautz says was “intentionally not advertised, allowing students to gather authentic feedback on taste, quality, and overall experience”.

“Learners are using real customer responses to drive data-informed decisions that will shape how they refine and improve the experience going forward,” she says.

Changes made by the student groups includied adjusting portion sizes, adding gluten-free options, and honing in on the zero waste messaging.

Second year student Joe Li’s group created a tasty open sandwich with chargrilled cauliflower.

“It’s absolutely zero waste.  We’ve used the cauliflower stems in the pickles and the leaves into a seasoning powder for the sandwich. And we help you to figure out the total calorie intake per sandwich," says Joe.

Charlie Beer’s group put together a “smashed chickpea taco with picadillo, chipotle mayo, and salsa verde”, making their own lime & chilli salt from the food scraps.

Bailey Kelynack says his group enjoyed the process of making a “plum and apple crumble, with a plum granita and an apple reduction sauce made from the apple waste.”

And an Asian fusion stack by Miki Inoue’s group started life as a spring roll idea before various recipe tweaks, including developing a zero waste “magic sauce”.

“This project taught me teamwork and how to manage different perspectives”, Miki says.

Juliane was pleased to see the energy and creativity of the students, and the strong sense of community to campus through the street food event.

“Beyond the food itself, the event created a rich, hands-on learning environment where ākonga demonstrated teamwork, planning, adaptability, and service excellence while engaging directly with their community.”