Mensa Project

During the Fall Semester of 2022, the Mensa at HSG St.Gallen is testing new menus to answer the underlying question if students would prefer more sustainable and healthy menus. The project is a collaboration between the ZHAW, the University of St. Gallen and the Catering Services of the Migros. The survey works closely togeher with the MNI index of the ZHAW. MNI stands for “Menü-Nachhaltigkeits-Index" which is translated to the “menu sustainability index”. The MNI enables menus to be evaluated in the sustainability aspects of environment and health (from a nutritional point of view); indicates the level of environmental impact of a menu in a single characteristic value, the "environmental impact points" (UBP); indicates the nutritional balance of a menu in so-called "nutritional balance points" (EBP) and helps kitchen managers & chefs to optimize menus in terms of environmental friendliness and/or balance without additional effort. The goal of the project is to evaluate if students would prefer more sustainable and/or healthy menus at the HSG Mensa. 

The testing phase itself is distributed into 2 phases: The first phase focuses on data collection on the MNI index at HSG Mensa and takes place in October 2022. The second phase focuses on the visual communication of the survey itself, with screens, display stands etc and takes place early December 2022.

Further findings will be published on our website around approximately early 2023.