Sodexo has been recognised in the inaugural U-Dine Awards, for its innovative Yardbird restaurant at Brunel University.

The U-Dine Awards, organised by the Menu Innovation Network, have been established to recognise and reward universities that are embracing and delivering the latest high street food and beverage trends to their students.

Yardbird, Sodexo’s winning concept in the ‘Casual Dining – Contractor’ category, is an innovative fast casual dining chicken restaurant developed to deliver a high margin. Judges were impressed by the development of an on-trend food offer with an appealing high street menu that none the less delivers the value-for-money pricing demanded by the student market.

Richard Learmount, marketing offer manager at Sodexo, said: “Yardbird has been a great success at Brunel so we’re thrilled to have been recognised by U-Dine. The concept mirrors the café culture of the high street and has enabled us to give our clients an exciting, high-end food offer which works really well as a branded high street substitute. In the first two weeks of trading we were able to increase lunchtime transactions by over 200%."

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