Meal delivery services are replacing company cafeterias
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
With EZCater Relish, individual meals are delivered to the office in lieu of a company cafeteria. Photo: Courtesy of EZCater
The pandemic killed the corporate cafeteria, but many workplaces are moving to more flexible options to keep employees fed — and happy.
Why it matters: Free food is a popular corporate perk, but in today's hybrid work environments, fluctuating attendance can lead to waste.
- Recurring meal delivery services like ezCater's Relish can be scaled up or down based on who's actually in the office, while providing employees with personalized choices — and potentially even trimming the boss' food bill.
How it works: Employees get a daily meal stipend for use on the Relish app, where they select what they want from a rotating list of local restaurants.
- Meals are individually packaged and delivered at a prescribed time to the workplace.
- Choices range from popular restaurant chains to mom-and-pop eateries, and typically include vegetarian or gluten-free options.
- People whose order exceeds the daily stipend can pay the balance with a pre-loaded credit card.
Zoom out: Relish was born of necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic, ezCater CEO Ashwin Raj tells Axios.
- The Boston-based food tech platform started in 2007 as an online marketplace to help businesses arrange food for large meetings and events.
- But when COVID-19 hit in March 2020, business dropped 85% overnight, Raj says.
- Even at workplaces like hospitals and factories where employees were still on-site, shared food lines brought safety concerns.
- That prompted the company to start offering individually packaged meal services.
By the numbers: ezCater's business bounced back by 2021, the company says, and its bookings have grown an average of 60% annually since then.
- Raj declined to provide revenue or profit figures; ezCater is a private company that was valued at $1.6 billion during its last funding round, in December 2021.
Zoom in: NorthPoint Development Group, a Kansas City-based commercial real estate company, uses Relish to simplify its longstanding practice of offering free lunch to its more than 300 employees.
- That became an especially big headache during the COVID-19 pandemic, when attendance was unpredictable.
- And when the company moved to a larger building in May 2022, it decided to repurpose the suddenly obsolete cafeteria into a community space with a kitchen.
- "People can cook if they want, or just hang out for lunch," Natasha Rickel, director of marketing and communications at NorthPoint, tells Axios.
- Meanwhile, NorthPoint's monthly food expenses fell by about 35%.
Between the lines: Free lunch is also helping some companies lure workers back to the office.
- At event ticketing firm SeatGeek, for example, working in its New York City office remains fully optional, but the company is using Relish's personalized lunches as an incentive for showing up.
- "We've seen five times the amount of people in the office, which has been great for us," says Gerard Visser, director of workplace services for SeatGeek.
The big picture: Other companies also offer employee meal delivery services.
- Uber for Business, for example, launched meal delivery in November 2018, letting companies set monthly, weekly or daily meal stipends for employees to order from Uber Eats.
- Employers can set time-of-day and location restrictions to ensure the stipends are properly used for work.
What they're saying: ezCater's Relish service is different because the platform was purpose-built for businesses, says Raj.
- "Food at work is complex and high stakes," he tells Axios. "You don't just drop off the food and walk away."
- Relish curates menus, ensures promised delivery times and oversees food setup while also automating back-office functions like invoicing and expense management.
The bottom line: Nobody wants to dine "al desko." Giving people the chance to have lunch with colleagues and order what they want — for free — just seems like good business.
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that ezCater's bookings have grown annually since 2021 at an average of 60% (not more than 60%).
