Michael Nakoinz is deputy kitchen manager of the interim canteen at the Cottbus Central Campus. As such, he is jointly responsible for translating recipes into calculations as well as ordering and purchasing the required goods. In addition to cooking food, his responsibilities also include cleaning, delivery, creating rosters and setting up campus catering.

"There are new challenges to be met every day in the dining hall at the Zentralcampus. For example, since the start of the war in Ukraine, we have been struggling with huge increases in purchasing prices.

Our day-to-day work in the dining halls has changed seriously in the course of the pandemic: For one thing, the number of students who were on campus plummeted. The amount of portions thus became difficult to plan. A new challenge was also a delivery service for residents* in the residence halls who were in quarantine. From January to July 2021, we supported the free, donation-funded meal services for students at the central campus of the BTU in Cottbus. I am all the more pleased that the summer semester is planned in attendance and the campus will fill with more life again. Moving into the newly designed refectory (planned for fall 2023) and implementing the new concepts will also be very exciting for us.

A big part of the strength for managing the daily "madness" is the team cohesion in the dining hall, where everyone is there for everyone else."