Help and advice
Shopping and essentials
Community Pantries
Help yourself to an item or two from the community pantries on our Cornwall campuses.
You'll find them stocked with food essentials at:
Penryn campus, The SU community pantry, SU office.
Knowledge Spa, Truro, common room kitchen
Please be respectful and mindful that it is a resource for all students. If you need longer-term help and support, speak to your SU advice team or see the details on these pages of other resources available to help you.
SU's Free Soup Friday
Fridays between 13:00 - 15:00, in The Upper Stannary Penryn Campus. Get a warm lunch, a chance to meet new people and get to know your Students' Union Sabbatical Officers. For more information see weekly event listing on Events on Campus.
Food and drink offers on campus
Our hospitality and retail team makes sure that there are low-cost options for hot meals and drinks on the Penryn and Falmouth campuses.
Warp It platform
Why not try this online peer-to-peer marketplace for students to exchange unwanted items for free? You can find out more on the Warp It website.
Too Good To Go app
Special offers are available on unsold food through the Too Good to Go app. The Penryn Campus shop and the Fox Cafe at Falmouth campus list offers on the app, and for our Truro students WHSmith in Royal Cornwall Hospital and Costa Coffee at Treliske Retail Park are also listed.
With Too Good To Go you can buy a 'magic bag' of goodies that are at the end of their use by, or best before dates. Bags cost around £3, and the RRP of the contents is around £10. So you're saving money while helping to reduce food waste. Items can be anything from sandwiches, to drinks and jars, and you won't know what you are going to get until you pick it up. There are other shops locally which are part of this scheme and publicise what they have to offer through the app. Download the app and see what's available in your area.
Bringing your own food to campus
At the Truro campus (the Knowledge Spa) the kitchen area in the common room area has free hot water, plus a microwave and fridge for your use.
At Penryn campus there are microwaves available for everyone's use upstairs in The Stannary and for Masters students, in the kitchen area outside the Masters Suite (opposite the Students’ Union office).
There is a Tea Point in the Penryn library (opposite the helpdesk) where you can get hot and cold water to make your own drinks.
Kernow Library of Things (KLOTH)
Based in Penryn, KLOTH provides an affordable way to borrow tools, equipment and occasional items, for a small fee rather than buying the item yourself. They have things like tents and camping equipment, hand and power tools, lawnmowers, strimmers and other garden tools, kitchen gadgets, board games, and sewing machines.
It's open at various times on Monday, Thursday and Saturday at the Old Gentlemen's Hut in Penryn on Quay Hill (next to Seabourne Fish, across from Jubilee Wharf), what3words ///defensive.pardon.dignitary
Need help to fix a household item? Try a local repair café.
Repair cafes are meeting places where you’ll find knowledgeable volunteers and the tools needed to help you repair your household items for free. They’re all about repairing things (together) and supporting a circular economy, where products and materials are kept in use at their highest value for as long as possible, avoiding energy use and waste. The Falmouth and Penryn Repair Cafe runs on the second Sunday of the month. Find the details for all the Falmouth and Penryn repair café dates and locations.
See more events from the Cornwall Repair Network.
Eat Well Spend Less
Check out the Eat Well Spend Less recipe videos from Healthy Cornwall.
Try a tasty curried lentil and sweet potato soup, or an easy chilli. They demonstrate a range of healthy, easy recipes that you can make at home for a tasty, low-cost meal, and can easily adapt to your own dietary choices. Let us know what you think of them, send us your pics and share your own low-cost recipes with us at studentcomms@exeter.ac.uk.
Make your shopping go further, reduce food waste and save yourself valuable time for when you don’t have time to cook or don’t feel like cooking.
Batch Cooking
Cook one big dish then portion it into separate containers. Let it cool and store in the fridge or freezer within one to two hours of cooking. Find out how to store and reheat your meals safely.
Safe food hacks
Make the most of your food shopping without taking safety risks.
Don’t eat food after its use by date – cook it beforehand and freeze it for later use.
- Let it cool down, put it in an airtight container or sealed bag and pop it in the freezer within 2 hours.
- Label items with the contents and date (no more UFOs - Unidentified Frozen Objects!)
- Save space by flat freezing: use a freezer bag instead of a container.
Search #SafeFoodHacks on social media for more ways to save time and money and get more advice on the Food Standards Agency’s Students’ guide
Love your leftovers
Reusing and reinventing your leftovers is a great way to make the most of your food. Cool and cover your leftovers and put them in a fridge or freezer within one to two hours. You can get advice and simple recipe ideas from Love Food Hate Waste.
Free period products
If you need them, there are free period products in many toilets on Penryn Campus, including The Exchange and The Stannary.
There are also free products available in the first floor accessible toilet at The Knowledge Spa, Truro.
The SU's Gender Expression Fund
The Gender Expression Fund can provide up to £50 for students on our Cornwall campuses who identify as trans, non-binary, intersex or otherwise gender diverse. It can be used to buy gender affirming products such as clothing, binders, packers and beauty products, or towards travel to medical or counselling/therapy appointments.
Discounts
Get deals discounts and freebies on Save The Student
Save with a Unidays card
Discounted brands at Student Beans
Get an NUS Totum card for more discounts