ANU is using the big campus rebuild as an opportunity to construct its own fNew menus at ANU –a range of eating options based on what people can afford, want and need.  People as in skint students whose need to eat can be greater than what can pay. And people as in staff who are cash-richer but time poor. DVC Marnie Hughes Warrington sets out the challenge in the new essay in her series on the remaking of ANU’s central consumer services.

The ANUryamid “prioritises time, affordability and provision, and variety. It has to recognise and to work with financial and time poverty, and to provide people with access to a variety of foods without guilt,” she writes. The base is “grab and go” $4-$10 items and moves up price points to apex fine-dining.

It’s an alternative to “the heaped pile of skipped meals, late meals, substitute snacks, high calorie and low nutritional cheap eats and hunger that defines much of our experience of university life.”

“We have also tried to listen to student and staff feedback on the kinds of foods that they would like to be able to access for free through our student associations and that they can and will pay for in money and in time.”

Fast that is free, or at least not fatty.