Sustainable Food

To support a healthy lifestyle on campus, Laurier has introduced sustainable practices and standards to ensure students have access to ethically sourced, locally grown, and low impact options. Introducing sustainable options into our food system can help reduce waste, produce fewer transportation emissions, support local community groups, and provide fair wages for marginalized farmers.

Sustainable Food at Northdale

Our Northdale campus nested in Waterloo is home to our community garden and edible forest. This collaborative space is tended to and maintained by several internal departments and community partners. 

Community Garden

Laurier’s Waterloo campus features a large, 14,000 sq. ft. community garden with allocated plots available for you to grow your own food. We offer two different sized plots, 4' x 4' and 8' x 8', and students can sign up either as an individual or as a group. These plots can be rented out from May to October each year. To request a plot, please fill out the Northdale Community Garden Plot request form by April 30, 2025. If you have any questions about requesting plots or how else you can get involved at Northdale, please email sustainability@wlu.ca to learn more about the program. 

For students who do not have regular access to transportation to get to the garden on a regular basis or have limited availability, you can also purchase produce grown at Northdale through our community partner, Young City Growers and their Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. This great program runs from mid September to late October each year.

For those going out to view the garden we ask you not to pick the produce from garden plots, our volunteers work very hard to tend to these plots over the summer months.

Edible Forest

Woven into the community garden plots at the Northdale Community Garden, is an edible forest featuring fruit trees bearing a variety of apples, pears, and service berries. These fruit trees help to fertilize the garden soil and help to prevent erosion from wind and rain. The fruit from these is available to our Laurier community.  

Fair Trade Campus

Since 2017, Laurier has been a designated Fair Trade Campus, showing our commitment to providing ethically sourced coffee, tea, and chocolate in our cafes, caterings, and dining areas. Fair Trade certified products signify that the farmers who grow and sell these goods are treated fairly, make a living wage, have support in working with large suppliers, and have access to fair trade networks.

Try these ethically sourced, delicious products at the locations listed below.

Coffee and Tea

• Fresh Food Company (Waterloo, Dining Hall)
• Union Market (Waterloo, Terrace Food Court) (tea only)
• BYTE75 Coffee and Social (Waterloo, Lazaridis Hall)
• Wilf’s Restaurant (Waterloo, Fred Nichols Campus Centre)
• Veritas Café (Waterloo, GSA)
• Frank’s Coffee Haus (Waterloo, Peters Building)
• 1911 Coffee Company (Waterloo, Terrace Food Court)
• Golden Grounds (Brantford, RAC)
• The Belmont (Brantford, One Market)
• Catering (Waterloo, Food Services)

Don’t forget to bring your own reusable coffee mug to receive a $0.40 discount (applies to all coffee and tea purchased on campus).

Chocolate

• Union Market (Waterloo, Terrace Food Court)
• BYTE75 Coffee and Social (Waterloo, Lazaridis)
• Frank’s Coffee Haus (Waterloo, Peters Building)

Coolfood

Since 2023, Laurier’s Food Services has been collaborating with Coolfood to provide meals that have a reduced climate impact. Coolfood certified meals look at the agricultural supply chain and the land used to make the food to determine the carbon footprint of the ingredients.

Meals that meet the requirements will be designated with a Coolfood logo. Keep an eye out in Food Service locations on campus and enjoy a low impact meal.