Hello again - I have met with our Head of Food & Beverage, and some of his colleagues, to discuss your suggestions for the Plant Pot. In terms of explaining why we have the menu we do today, we undertook expansive customer research and insight outreach work in the summer of 2020 to try and understand what our vegan and vegetarian students were looking for. In response to this feedback, we replaced the food servery area with a new, Subway-style counter, which is what students asked for and is what we have now. Unfortunately, we are not able to bring back the old menu because the new layout of the kitchen, including the limited provision for electricity, does not allow for this. It is also worth letting you know that some of the suggestions that a small number of students have asked for - jacket potatoes, hot pasties - were launched last week, and didn't sell, leading to wastage. However, I'm happy to report to you that we are exploring in coming weeks implementing a hot menu, consisting of things such as veggie burgers and fries and similar to the old menu items, that will be made in the main kitchen upstairs and delivered to the Plant Pot via the Stag's-style pagers. I really hope this alleviates some of your concerns, and I hope to see it brought in across the next few weeks. As internal conversations from my end have been completed, I will close this submission, but you are more than welcome to contact me again at president@soton.ac.uk! Thanks again.

- Ben. 

Hi there - thanks very much for getting in touch again and for expressing your concerns. I have raised all of your feedback with our Head of Food & Beverage, who is actively exploring options for diversifying the range of foods on offer in the Plant Pot; it's absolutely a priority for us all, and is a project that has been in the works since you first raised this on You Make Change. To ensure that I am representing your feelings accurately, I'd really welcome a conversation with you, and if you'd like to organise this, please drop me an email at president@soton.ac.uk. In the meantime, I will continue speaking with our Food & Beverage team to ensure vegan and vegetarian students are provided for fairly on campus.

- Ben.