3 Benefits of Offering Boxed Lunches at Work

Whether it be weekly, fortnightly, or monthly, free food at work is no longer just a nice perk.

It is now a necessary fringe benefit included in hiring packages.

Even more so, in the post-covid world, when most companies calling their employees back on-site are scouting for safe and healthy alternatives to office cafeteria and food courts. Most corporate workers have busy morning routines. There are days when they are not able to fix a healthy and nutritious homemade lunch they can enjoy during the 60-minute paid break baked into their employment contract.

Amidst their race against the clock, traffic, and long wait times at restaurants, they end up having fast foods or pre-packaged junk food from the closest joint they find in the area. With both the options loaded with calories, fat, and excess sodium, the afternoon slump creeps in soon after lunchtime, and the workers feel a dip in their productivity levels. But it doesn’t have to stay this way!

In this article, we’ll discuss the three biggest benefits of offering individually boxed lunches for your company and your employees.

1) Promotes healthy eating habits.

During lunch break, the employees cannot always be particularly picky about their food choices.

They are hungry and have to decide quickly, or they will either have to eat at their desk (which might not be allowed at some offices), or skip lunch altogether.

Chances are they will choose convenience over nutrition.

Research published in the British Journal of Health Psychology indicates that when people consume healthy, nutritious food during the day, they are generally happier, feel more engaged, and experience their lives as more meaningful and purposeful.

When you provide your employees a balanced meal, tailored to their needs, you are helping them switch to a healthier, happier lifestyle.

2) Improves productivity.

When lunchtime approaches, the buzz of the busy workplace begins to fade as your workers start leaving the office to fetch lunch, or gather around a desk and chat, while waiting for their food delivery to arrive.

If you do the math, a one-hour-long lunch break plus two 15-minute coffee breaks can add up to several productive work hours lost in a month.

Ultimately, this missed work will cost your company several thousand dollars annually.

By getting individually packed, sumptuously delicious, gourmet lunch boxes delivered to your office for your team, you’re doing more than just taking a major source of stress and distraction out of their workday.

You are giving them a higher-quality lunch alternative, which means they will be more energized to combat the afternoon crash, hit important deadlines, and check items off their to-do list efficiently.

3) It’s a win-win solution for everybody. One might think that offering free food will drive the labor cost up. Well, actually, it won’t. Far from being an expense, partially or fully subsidized meals are an investment into a positive workplace environment.

Catered lunches or boxed meals arriving at a designated time will foster a culture of all your employees eating together. They will interact with people from other teams and departments, and exchange their experiences.

If anything, it will promote cross-functional learning and nurture strong social bonds between the employees. They will enjoy coming to the office, and be more dedicated towards their job, resulting in tangible ROI in terms of productivity alone.

To put things into perspective, imagine a full-time employee who makes AED 12000

(all inclusive of benefits) a month. For an 8-hour workday, this person is being paid AED 50 per hour. By providing an AED 40 meal to this employee daily, your company actually saves

AED 120 every month. In fact, you save more if that person chooses to work another half-hour instead of heading out for lunch.

In short, a paid-for meal boosts employee satisfaction and workplace productivity, whilst improving your bottom line at the same time.

We’re here to help! If you’re interested in hiring a lunch box catering service for your office, please contact us.

Whether you provide meals daily or weekly, we will make sure that you and your team get to enjoy a variety of fresh, healthy, single-serve meals, customized to your individual tastes and dietary requirements.