Work lunch, reinvented
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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.
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.
