Tender: Catering Services for Walton Hall, The Open University – Milton Keynes (2027 tender)

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The Open University is seeking a supplier for catering services at Walton Hall, its Milton Keynes headquarters, through a tendering exercise due in early 2027. The university, the UK’s largest online university teaching up to 200,000 students per year, requires café, restaurant and meeting/hospitality services to serve academics, around 200 postgraduate students, support staff and tenant teams on campus. The campus population has changed from over 3,500 to current peak days of about 1,100 (Tuesday–Thursday) with much lower numbers on Mondays and Fridays, and this may increase as the OU leases buildings to external organisations. The OU’s objectives are a financially sustainable service that incorporates current and future food service trends, maintains high creativity, quality and variety (which may require remodelling of staffing and service areas), operates 8:00am–4:00pm five days per week excluding public holidays and Christmas closure, offers consistent value for money, and is flexible to respond to changing site population. The OU invites catering suppliers to participate in an Early Market Engagement exercise to help understand industry developments, assist in drafting procurement requirements and gauge market interest.