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What’s really on students’ plates?

13 October 2025 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Anja Aucamp

Students at the UFS are making daily food choices under tight budgets. The 2025 Food Environment Survey by the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics sheds light on these challenges.

What’s for dinner? For most students, that question is about more than taste. It’s about budgets, storage space, time, and whether the food will even last until tomorrow. At the University of the Free State (UFS), researchers have been listening closely to students’ experiences, and the results tell a powerful story.

Earlier surveys in 2020 and 2022 showed that many UFS students struggle with food insecurity and that hunger is linked to academic performance. Now, the new 2025 UFS Food Environment Survey digs deeper, providing fresh data on how students plan, shop, store and stretch their food.

The release comes at the perfect moment: the world is about to mark World Food Day on 16 October 2025 under the theme, Hand in Hand for Better Foods and a Better Future. At the UFS, that spirit of “hand in hand” is already at work through the Eat & Succeed programme and the efforts of the Food Environment Task Committee (FETC), the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, the Food Environment Office, the Department of Sustainable Food Systems and Development, and the Division of Student Affairs’ vegetable tunnels where academic and support staff are working together to build a healthier, more supportive food environment.

Navigating food choices on a tight budget

Led by Prof Louise van den Berg, Associate Professor from the Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, the 2025 survey received replies from 1 586 undergraduates, a group that reflects the student body. The findings confirm what many already know: students are resourceful, but they’re also facing real challenges.

On average, students eat from three food groups a day, instead of the recommended five. Many skip on protective foods like fruit, vegetables and dairy; not because they don’t want them, but because they’re harder to afford or to keep fresh. Almost a third of students don’t have a fridge, and those who do often share small spaces. That means foods like milk, cheese, yoghurt, fruit and vegetables can go off in just a day or two. For students living on tight NSFAS budgets, buying fresh food often feels like a gamble. She says the risk of food spoiling often outweighs the benefit of buying it at all.

Shopping habits reflect these pressures too. Many students shop only once or twice a month, favouring shelf-stable foods like maize meal, noodles, and canned goods. “While such foods can fill stomachs and stretch budgets, they do not provide the same balance of nutrients as diets that regularly include fresh produce, lean proteins, and dairy,” comments Prof Van Den Berg.

She continues, pointing out another finding: when buying food on campus, students place price and convenience above everything else. “This highlights not a lack of interest in eating healthily, but rather the practical decisions students must make every day with limited money, limited time, and limited storage.”

Still, it’s not all bad news. The survey shows that most students are already making smart choices by limiting sugary drinks and salty snacks. The main gap is simply access to affordable, perishable foods that boost health and concentration.

That’s where the UFS initiatives come in. The Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, the FETC, and the Food Environment Office are working to raise awareness through programmes such as Eat & Succeed by sharing practical shopping tips, affordable healthy options, and exploring ways to improve access to safe food storage on campus. Prof Van Den Berg also believes that small, practical changes, such as making fruit and vegetables more available at fair prices, or helping students to learn how to stretch groceries further, can have a big impact on student wellbeing.

Supporting students to eat well and succeed

The results of the latest survey show that our students aren’t careless with their diets. They’re doing the best they can with what they have. “Our job is to make it easier for them to ensure that they can purchase affordable, portion-sized fruit, vegetables and dairy products without worrying about storage or spoilage. Such initiatives would help bridge the gap between financial constraints and the need for protective foods in students’ diets,” says Prof Van den Berg.

At the end of the day, the 2025 Food Environment Survey is about more than statistics only. It’s about listening to students, understanding their daily struggles, and finding real solutions, because when students have the right fuel, they have a much better chance of succeeding; both in the classroom and in life.

News Archive

In January 1, 2003, the Qwa-Qwa campus of the University of the North (Unin) was incorporated into the University of the Free State (UFS).

2003-02-07

FREDERICK FOURIE

IN January 1, 2003, the Qwa-Qwa campus of the University of the North (Unin) was incorporated into the University of the Free State (UFS).

While this is merely the beginning of a long and complex process, it does represent a major milestone in overcoming the apartheid legacy in education, realising the anti-apartheid goal of a single non-racial university serving the Free State.

The incorporation is also part of the minister's broader restructuring of the higher education landscape in South Africa - a process which aims to reshape the ideologically driven legacy of the past.

In contrast to the past educational and social engineering that took place, the current process of incorporating the Qwa-Qwa campus of Unin into the UFS is informed by three fundamentally progressive policy objectives, clearly outlined in the education white paper 3: (A framework for the transformation of higher education):

To meet the demands of social justice to address the social and structural inequalities that characterise higher education.

To address the challenges of globalisation, in particular the role of knowledge and information processing in driving social and economic development.

To ensure that limited resources are effectively and efficiently utilised, given the competing and equally pressing priorities in other social sectors.

Besides informing the way the UFS is managing the current incorporation, these policy objectives have also informed the transformation of the UFS as an institution over the past five years.

In 2001, former president Nelson Mandela lauded the success of the UFS in managing this transformation, by describing the campus as a model of multiculturalism and multilingualism. This was at his acceptance of an honorary doctorate from the UFS.

Indeed our vision for the Qwa-Qwa campus as a branch of the UFS is exactly the same as it is for the main UFS campus - a model of transformation, academic excellence, community engagement and financial sustainability, building on the histories and strengths of both the Qwa-Qwa campus and the UFS (Bloemfontein campus).

Realising this vision will be a giant leap forward in establishing a unified higher education landscape in the Free State.

In more concrete terms, the UFS is working towards this vision by focusing on the following areas of intervention: access and equity; academic renewal; investment in facilities; and sound financial management.

These interventions are being made not to preserve any vestiges of privilege or superiority, but precisely to increase access for students from poor backgrounds and to promote equity and representivity among all staff.

The current growth phase of the UFS has seen student enrolment almost double over the past five years, in particular black students, who now constitute approximately 55 percent of the student population of nearly 18 000 (including off-campus and online students).

But it has not just been a numbers game. Our approach has been to ensure access with success.

Our admissions policy, coupled with the academic support and "career preparation" programmes we offer, have resulted in significant successes for students who otherwise would not have been allowed to study at a university.

This will be continued at Qwa-Qwa as well.

Our academic offerings too have undergone dramatic change. We have become the first university in the country to offer a degree programme based on the recognition of prior learning (RPL).

This is not just a matter of academic renewal but of access as well, especially for working adults in our country who were previously denied a university education.

As for the sound financial management of the UFS (including the Qwa-Qwa campus), this is being done not for the sake of saving a few rands and cents, but for the greater value to our society that comes from having sustainable institutions.

It is sustainable universities that can make long-term investments to fund employment equity, provide information technology for students, upgrade laboratories, construct new buildings, develop research capacity, and provide a safe environment for students and staff, as is happening now at the UFS.

As a result of such management, a practical benefit for prospective students at the Qwa-Qwa campus of the UFS will be lower academic fees in some cases compared with the Unin fees.

As is the case with all these processes, there are concerns from staff and students at Qwa-Qwa and the broader community of the region that the Qwa-Qwa campus serves.

To get the campus viable and to ensure its continuation in the short term, tough choices had to be made by the minister of education regarding which programmes to offer and fund.

But we have been encouraged by the community's understanding that these concerns can be addresed over time as the campus becomes financially viable.

Meetings between the top mangement of the UFS and community representatives, staff and students at Qwa-Qwa have laid the basis for building a climate of trust in such a complex process.

We should not be captives of the past divisions but build this new unified higher education landscape that can meet our country's developmental needs.

It should be a higher education landscape that is based on broadening access, promoting equity and social justice, developing academic excellence, and the effective and efficient management of scarce resources. This should be our common common objective.

Professor Frederick Fourie the rector and vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS)

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