Students isolating in Dunedin are getting the comforts of home delivered to their door as Covid-19 runs rampant amongst tertiary students.
Thousands of students are confined to their flats, so culinary arts students at Otago Polytechnic have decided to pitch in.
"We all got our food brains working and started prototyping some easy microwave and oven proof meals for students," says Charlotte Ramsey, third year culinary arts student.
The team has made around 20 different dishes, ranging from soup to lasagne, and meatballs to mac and cheese.
Senior Lecturer Tony Heptinstall says they want the meals to remind students of the comforts of home.
"It's good healthy food if you're having to live off two minute noodles - and this is made with a lot of love and a lot of care," he says.
The team aims to produce, pack and freeze more than 1000 meals, and will deliver them to isolating flats over the next few weeks.
"It's been quite good because none of us have been able to go to supermarkets and all of our friends are isolating as well," says Anna Naylor, who is isolating along with seven other flatmates.
But it's not just those isolating who benefit.
"It's been an amazing learning curve, we've been learning how to bake, process in bulk, keeping the flavour in mind, learning what food is good for packaging," says Ramsey.
Lecturer Tony Heptinstall says the students have enjoyed giving back to their peers.
"This is, I guess, moving away from that commercial side of hospitality and not just thinking about how you can make money out of people and also we all realise food is a great way of connecting with people," he says.
The students will be able to use this project as part of their formal assessment for the third-year Bachelor of Culinary Arts programme.
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