Catering design company MYA Consulting has won a prestigious design contract with the United World College in the Dutch city of Maastricht.
The firm, run by Swindon businesswomen Carla Mackenzie and Margaret Young, is redesigning the mensa (cafeteria), menu and kitchen of UWC Maastricht. 
The contract was won by MYA against fierce international competition. The firm has built up a reputation for daring innovation in the field of catering consultancy and design, summed up by its slogan Be Bold, Be Brave.
It has wide experience in the education sector having worked with Harrow School, Eton College and St Paul’s Cathedral School. Other clients include train operator First Great Western.
As part of its presentation to UWC Maastricht, MYA took a hand-made Double Gloucester cheese as used in the famous – and dangerous – cheese-rolling competition that takes place at Cooper’s Hill, close to the firm’s base in a refurbished mill in Stroud.
Founded in 2009, UWC Maastricht was the 12th of the 15th United World Colleges that now exist on five continents. The first, Atlantic College in South Wales, was founded in 1962 by German-Jewish educator Kurt Hahn, where MYA Consulting has also helped to revamp the catering facilities.
UWC Maastricht has 860 students from more than 100 countries from Albania to Zambia and ranging in age from three to 18.
Some 180 of them are full-time residential students and MYA aims to cater for all their tastes with a mouth-watering selection of ingredients and menus from all over the globe, cooked in the most green and environmentally sustainable way possible.
Managing director Carla McKenzie, pictured above in Maastricht, said: “We were chosen because our company ethos and values closely reflect those of UWC and its founder Kurt Hahn, and because of our particular flair and expertise in designing inspiring environments for young people to eat and socialise in.
“The contract will contribute significantly to the company’s growth and strengthens our foothold in the wider European market place. We are currently pursuing several other international opportunities.”
Maastricht is known as a symbol of European integration after the landmark treaty signed there in 1992 – a fact not lost on MYA in the run-up to the UK EU referendum.
Regardless of the outcome of that, MYA sees its contract in the Dutch city as a major boost to its European expansion.
Carla Mackenzie, who lives in Royal Wootton Bassett, rode from John O’Goats to Land’s End off road on a trail bike last year in aid of the Dougie Dalzell Memorial Trust and Bike Tours for the Wounded.
Pictured below: UWC Maastricht
