We do not consider attendees at Camps and Gatherings to be ‘customers’, as we do not consider Veggies to be a slot machine for food. Often Veggies is simply providing the facilities and we are all crew; as such we welcome hands on input from everyone – the preparation of every meal is a hands on workshop in mass vegan catering.
However we ask all attendees to read this:
The Food
The meals on offer here at the gathering are as ethical as we can make them. That means 100% vegan, with attention paid to food miles, excessive packaging, workers’ rights and related issues. We also try to keep the costs down for you and we offer our menu at only slightly more than cost price.
Unfortunately, lack of communication between caterers and eaters at events like this can cause considerable wastage of food or money, or in not enough food being cooked. Please help us to minimise these problems by doing the following:
* Buy a meal ticket for every meal that you intend to eat. The deadline for doing this is two hours before each meal, as that is when we count up the tickets and decide how many portions to cook. Do not join the queue unless you have a meal ticket. If you know that friends will arrive on site shortly before a meal, check whether they want a meal and buy their tickets for them before they arrive.
* Do not buy a meal ticket and then fail to turn up for the meal. If you go off site or decide to make other arrangements, please either hand your ticket back, or arrange for us to put a plate of food to one side for you.
* Turn up and queue when the food is served. It is unfair to keep us hanging on for an hour standing at the food counter, not knowing whether we can shout “seconds” or start to pack away and get ready for the next meal. We need to know that people will be served in one sitting, not in dribs and drabs.
* If a group of people are going off-site (e.g. to a demo) we need to know the exact number of people who need a meal saved for them.
* Please do a washing-up shift. If every attendee does one five minute washing up shift, it won’t build up and the clean mugs won’t run out. For hygiene reasons, it is essential to wash your hands before washing up and that you do a session, rather than everybody washing up their individual plates and mugs.
* Respect the vegan ethics of ourselves and many of people on site – Do not eat non-vegan food using our plates and utensils, as it causes upset and offence, (especially if you then leave them out for others to wash).
* Be allergy aware – Don’t put a peanut butter knife in the margarine, or use the gluten-free pasta spoon to handle normal pasta.
* Be wasp aware – Sugary things like cakes, jam and fruit juice must be kept covered at all times. Fizzy drink cans must be put straight into the recycling bins.
* Give us feedback – Comments about the food help us to make our catering better each year.
* Finally, please let event organisers know you are coming in advance, as it means they can pass on to us an accurate estimate of how many people we need to cook for.
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