Stakladen goes organic
She is a chef. She has 20 years of cafeteria management experience. The Danish food sector knows her as a source of inspiration and speaker. She has received several awards for innovation and ecology. From 1 March she will be the new director for Studenterhusfonden, which runs Stakladen and 11 other cafeterias at Aarhus University. Welcome to Kristina Kristensen.
The staff and students who daily eat at one of Studenterhusfonden’s cafeterias have something to look forward to. For the newly appointed director is not a conventional cafeteria manager. For nine years she has been responsible for running the cafeterias at Vestas, where she established a ‘deli’ and a bakery and invited employees to a cooking school. Now a new challenge has lured her to the university.
“The Studenterhusfonden has the new goal that all food must be prepared on the premises, that the food must be sustainable and that from 2020 90 per cent of the food must be organic. That is a fantastically ambitious goal and a great challenge that is just the thing for me,” says Kristina Kristensen.
Sustainable and innovative cafeteria management is Kristina Kristensen’s trademark. Together with a team of employees she has written a book which she herself describes as a blueprint for bringing ecology and sustainability into catering kitchens.
“The way I look at it is that we have to serve fuel to staff and students, and that it must be healthy and good food which has been prepared with consideration for the environment. Serving food to as many people as we do, we have a huge responsibility to also take care of the environment,” she explains.
When asked about the changes that staff and students at AU can expect to experience, she answers:
“Staff and students will need to get used to more seasonal dishes and they will probably also have to do without quite as many protein sources. We must keep on developing ourselves and exploring new opportunities. Maybe we should establish a soup kitchen, so that we can offer students a good meal that they can afford on student grant,” says the new director while thinking aloud.
The Studenterhusfonden runs 12 cafeterias, the conference centre on Fredrik Nielsens Vej, the guest houses and Dale’s Caféfor Aarhus University and for INCUBA Science Park.