Help and advice
Shopping and essentials
Community Pantries
Help yourself to an item or two from the community pantries on our Cornwall campuses.
You'll find them stocked with food essentials at:
Penryn campus, The SU community pantry, SU office.
Knowledge Spa, Truro, common room kitchen
Please be respectful and mindful that it is a resource for all students. If you need longer-term help and support, speak to your SU advice team or see the details on these pages of other resources available to help you.
Free soup in the SU
Every Friday from 13:00 - 15:00, the SU offers free vegan soup to all students in the SU space on the Penryn campus. Bring a bowl and spoon if you can. Keep an eye on @supresidents on Instagram for updates.
Food and drink offers on campus
Our food and drink team are making sure that there are low-cost options for hot meals and drinks on Penryn Campus.
The Stannary
Wednesday £1 Breakfast Club
Wednesdays from 08:30-10:00 get a cup of tea and two pieces of toast, two butters and one jam for £1.
Monday to Friday:
Breakfast - starts at £2 for beans on toast, £2.50 for scrambled egg on toast, or for £3.50 get a 3-item bap and free hot drink.
Lunch - meals start at £1.90 for a plain jacket potato with salad, a mini lentil chilli with nachos is £2.80, mini beef nachos £3, lentil chilli with rice £3.70 or beef chilli with rice for £3.90.
£2 Vegan Hot Pot - a hearty vegan rice or pasta dish available at lunchtime.
The menu is as follows:
Monday: Pepperonata
Tuesday: Herby Tomato Ragu
Wednesday: Vegetable Sweet and Sour
Thursday: Ratatouille
Friday: Smashed Aubergine and Squash Curry
Halal Hot Pot for £2.95.
Koofi
Visit Koofi to take advantage of their mix and match pizza offers. You can buy two margherita, vegan or vegetarian 10” pizzas for £11, or two pepperoni 10” pizzas for £12.
Drink Offers
Hot Drink Loyalty Card
Pick up a hot drink loyalty card in the Stannary or any of the cafes on campus. You can then collect stamps for every hot drink you buy. Once you have ten stamps you can redeem them for any regular hot drink or iced coffee. Terms and conditions apply.
Afternoon BOGOF
Between 15:00-17:00 you can buy one, get one free on all hot drinks in the Sustainability Café, Lower and Upper Deli Bar, Fox Café, Stannary Kitchen, and AMATA Café (exclusions apply). If you bring your reusable cup, you can save 20p as well.
Tea of the week
There is a ‘tea of the week’ £1.50 teapot offer available every day (Monday to Friday) in the Sustainability Café.
Returnable cup scheme
The Sustainability Café has partnered with Circular & Co to bring a returnable cup scheme to Campus. These reusable cups are available to buy in the Sustainability Café where you can pay a £2 deposit (small) or £3 deposit (large) and get your money back if you no longer want the cup. The cup has to be returned in a good condition with its lid for a full refund. These cups can be used anywhere on campus. You can also get 20p off any hot drink by using a reusable cup.
Stannary Bar
A pint of our export lager ‘Après Study’ is available for £3.50.
Penryn Campus Shop
We stock the co-op budget-friendly range ‘Honest’. These are everyday, good-value, ethical items with no artificial colourings, flavourings or preservatives. The range includes products such as Fairtrade coffee and responsibly sourced loo rolls.
You can also get a Sandwich meal deal: Buy a can, a packet of crisps and a sandwich from £4.
Too Good To Go app
Special offers are available on unsold food through the Too Good to Go app. The Penryn Campus shop and the Fox Cafe at Falmouth campus list offers on the app, and for our Truro students WHSmith in Royal Cornwall Hospital and Costa Coffee at Treliske Retail Park are also listed.
With Too Good To Go you can buy a 'magic bag' of goodies that are at the end of their use by, or best before dates. Bags cost around £3, and the RRP of the contents is around £10. So you're saving money while helping to reduce food waste. Items can be anything from sandwiches, to drinks and jars, and you won't know what you are going to get until you pick it up. There are other shops locally which are part of this scheme and publicise what they have to offer through the app. Download the app and see what's available in your area.
Bringing your own food to campus
At the Truro campus (the Knowledge Spa) the kitchen area in the common room area has free hot water, plus a microwave and fridge for your use.
At Penryn campus there are microwaves available for everyone's use upstairs in The Stannary and for Masters students, in the kitchen area outside the Masters Suite (opposite the Students’ Union office).
Kernow Library of Things (KLOTH)
Based in Penryn, KLOTH provides an affordable way to borrow tools, equipment and occasional items, for a small fee rather than buying the item yourself. They have things like tents and camping equipment, hand and power tools, lawnmowers, strimmers and other garden tools, kitchen gadgets, board games, and sewing machines.
It's open at various times on Monday, Thursday and Saturday at the Old Gentlemen's Hut in Penryn on Quay Hill (next to Seabourne Fish, across from Jubilee Wharf), what3words ///defensive.pardon.dignitary
Need help to fix a household item? Try a local repair café.
Repair cafes are meeting places where you’ll find knowledgeable volunteers and the tools needed to help you repair your household items for free. They’re all about repairing things (together) and supporting a circular economy, where products and materials are kept in use at their highest value for as long as possible, avoiding energy use and waste. Find the details for all the Falmouth and Penryn repair café dates and locations.
See more events from the Cornwall Repair Network
Eat Well Spend Less
Check out the Eat Well Spend Less recipe videos from Healthy Cornwall.
Try a tasty curried lentil and sweet potato soup, or an easy chilli. They demonstrate a range of healthy, easy recipes that you can make at home for a tasty, low-cost meal, and can easily adapt to your own dietary choices. Let us know what you think of them, send us your pics and share your own low-cost recipes with us at studentcomms@exeter.ac.uk.
Make your shopping go further, reduce food waste and save yourself valuable time for when you don’t have time to cook or don’t feel like cooking.
Batch Cooking
Cook one big dish then portion it into separate containers. Let it cool and store in the fridge or freezer within one to two hours of cooking. Find out how to store and reheat your meals safely.
Safe food hacks
Make the most of your food shopping without taking safety risks.
Don’t eat food after its use by date – cook it beforehand and freeze it for later use.
- Let it cool down, put it in an airtight container or sealed bag and pop it in the freezer within 2 hours.
- Label items with the contents and date (no more UFOs - Unidentified Frozen Objects!)
- Save space by flat freezing: use a freezer bag instead of a container.
Search #SafeFoodHacks on social media for more ways to save time and money and get more advice on the Food Standards Agency’s Students’ guide
Love your leftovers
Reusing and reinventing your leftovers is a great way to make the most of your food. Cool and cover your leftovers and put them in a fridge or freezer within one to two hours. You can get advice and simple recipe ideas from Love Food Hate Waste.
Free period products
If you need them, The Students' Union is providing free period products in toilets on Penryn Campus.
There are also free products available in the first floor accessible toilet at The Knowledge Spa, Truro.
The SU's Gender Expression Fund
The Gender Expression Fund can provide up to £50 for students on our Cornwall campuses who identify as trans, non-binary, intersex or otherwise gender diverse. It can be used to buy gender affirming products such as clothing, binders, packers and beauty products, or towards travel to medical or counselling/therapy appointments.
Discounts
Get deals discounts and freebies on Save The Student
Save with a Unidays card
Discounted brands at Student Beans
Get an NUS Totum card for more discounts