Students: Win £200 towards your back to uni essentials

A new competition has just launched that allows students to win £200 towards their university food shop - all they have to do is submit a photo of their best-worst university meal.

The competition comes from TOTUM, a membership platform for both students and professionals, and will be judged by a professional chef and author of Cook Together, Dorothy Woods.

The competition opened on August 5 and will close on September 14.

To enter, students will need to submit a picture and brief description of what they consider their best-worst meal. Professional chef Dorothy Woods will rank the submissions based on:

• Nutritional value

• How balanced the meal is

• How colourful your plate is

From burnt toast to questionable plain pasta with a side of tomato ketchup, the top three worst submissions will win a £200 supermarket voucher of their choice.

The competition follows some shocking revelations from a survey that TOTUM recently commissioned to 1,000 students.

The survey asked students what they missed - or will miss the most - when moving away to university. The data revealed that more than a quarter (26%) will miss home-cooked meals more than their friends and family (22%).

When it comes to confidence in the kitchen, 20% of students claimed they didn’t feel confident cooking home-cooked meals from scratch independently, with 7% admitting they’ve never cooked a proper meal.

While almost half of students claimed they can cook 5+ meals, they admitted they ‘always rotate them’ (39%), with 10% stating they can only cook 1 to two meals on rotation.

The findings show that current and prospective students are more confident in the kitchen (48%) compared to alumni students (34%).

Simon Wild, head of marketing and membership at TOTUM said about the competition: “We’ve all heard the jokes around student diets - toast, freezer food and pot noodles - but university can be a stressful time for students. There’s a big adjustment period for freshers, while mature students might be facing deadlines and looming dissertations, all while trying to find the right balance between managing a household and their studies.

“We also completely understand that socialising and going out is a huge part of the university culture but this can take a toll on our bodies, so it’s incredibly important to eat a balanced diet. So, to help fuel students' freshers, we want to give the chance for three students to win this voucher to help them stock up on university essentials and eat well.”

The competition will end on September 14th, and students can enter the survey on Totum’s dedicated page: https://totum.com/campaigns/win-your-freshers-food-shop