Restaurant satisfaction survey

November–December 2022

The 2022 survey

The EPFL campus is home to a bustling community of 130 nationalities with varied food-related expectations.

In late 2022, we hired Altella SA to conduct a wide-ranging satisfaction survey to help our catering providers learn more about you – their customers – and better align their products and services with your needs.

Here are the key takeaways from the survey:

• The EPFL community has diverse food-related expectations, with 66.5% of you expressing a preference for world cuisines.
• Almost 40% of you are interested in vegetarian meals.
• You’re concerned about eating healthy meals that incorporate seasonal ingredients, and you like the idea that leftover food can be purchased at the end of the day.
• You want healthier food that’s served in recyclable containers and, ideally, sourced locally.
• For 57% of you, location is the determining factor for where you choose to eat.
• For many of you, price determines what you choose to eat.
  
  

Our action plan

The two points of contention that came up most often in the survey were the prices charged by our catering providers, and vegetarian day arrangements.

In terms of pricing, it goes without saying that healthy, sustainable eating comes at a cost. But we’ve taken various steps since 2020 to make the food served on campus as affordable as possible, without compromising on flavor, nutritional value or sustainability. Our core purpose, of course, is to take care of your health while also looking after our planet. The prices at our self-service eateries speak for themselves:

• Student menu: CHF 5.90–8.10
• Single-course menu: CHF 8.60
• Three-course menu (starter, main course and dessert): CHF 9.70

We’re also working with consulting firm Mazars to review pricing practices across EPFL’s food establishments, based on a list of questions developed with input from AGEPoly. We’ll share the results of this exercise with you at the start of the 2023 fall semester.

The weekly vegetarian day is about serving up dishes that are even better for your health – and for the planet. After all, our food choices make a difference: vegetarian options are much kinder to the environment than dishes containing meat. By reducing how much meat we eat on campus, we can also do our part to help meet the in EPFL’s Climate & Sustainability Strategy. With vegetarian day, we’re giving the whole community a chance to enjoy and appreciate healthy, flavorsome, meat-free dishes.

To make things easier, starting in September, vegetarian day will be scheduled for the same day each week: Tuesdays.