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The shift in attitude towards workplace catering over the past quarter century has been immense: from a time when on-site catering was seen as a necessary evil, a cost with no tangible benefits to a company, to what is now seen as a ‘perk of the job’ and a real recruitment aid. Perhaps the change has come from companies placing employee welfare higher on their agendas or perhaps it is due to the changing culture of ever shortening and ever fewer lunch breaks; but without doubt, regardless of the reason, on-site catering is swiftly becoming a must-have.

The business & industry foodservice market is an extremely mature, highly competitive place which means that innovation in food is always at the fore of catering providers’ minds. The outsourced market is dominated by the largest foodservice providers, which historically have been and continue to be able to provide the best value and most diverse food offerings. These large, international companies are also able to draw on the global innovation of their foreign counterparts and bring new trends to the workplace restaurant, ensuring that employees’ meal offerings keep up with world-wide trends. In an office of just a few hundred, a deli or café as well as a restaurant serving several hot options would not be out of place. The options when these few hundred are increased to one thousand or more employees would put many a high street food court to shame with the presence of restaurants, delis, cafés and coffee pods, not to mention hospitality and private dining.

Generation change
The development of the workplace eating destination is likely to be a generational trend. Today’s younger employees have been brought up in a time when eating out is a regular occurrence; gone are the days when a visit to a restaurant was a one-off, reserved for a special occasion. This generation is used to being able to frequent high street restaurants and enjoy a meal relatively cheaply and quickly, often without prior booking, making it an easy, everyday experience. This attitude of mind is reflected in their eating habits at work too: these employees tend not to bring in their own lunch and would rather enjoy the ease and convenience of buying a meal or freshly prepared sandwich on-site.

The high street parallel also extends to employees’ expectation to eat and drink branded offerings in a branded restaurant, deli or café. Employees are increasingly brand-conscious and, particularly following the coffee shop boom of the 1990s, appreciate being able to buy a good cup of coffee in their workplace, effectively experiencing the high street within their office building.

This demand for brands, value and variety goes a long way to explaining why much of the marketplace is outsourced, and particularly to large organisations with the resource to innovate and economies of scale which bring down cost.

Today’s B&I customer has higher than ever demands and sophisticated standards which, if aren’t met, will be taken to a high street retailer that will almost guarantee to deliver. The nation as a whole is better travelled and better educated than ever before and the average employee will know the differences between a korma, madras, tikka masala and rogan josh and, as a result, will expect their workplace curry to reflect what they would find in an authentic Indian restaurant. So, while companies concentrate on their core business, outsourcing to specialists with expertise to meet these demands provides the best solution and means that one office building could include such variety as a deli serving homemade cakes and sandwiches, a Costa Coffee outlet and a restaurant complete with hot food and grab-and-go offerings, as well as salad and pasta bars and a jacket potato stations.

Cost considerations
Although convenience is still king, the recession has prompted customers to reconsider their outgoings, including money spent on eating at work. Customers have not shied away from their high street coffee and hot meals in their workplace but have looked to cut costs where possible. This challenging economic climate has meant that for many customers, value for money has been top of mind, value meals which are priced at or below the critical price point of £2.50 and meal deals have prevailed and are viewed as a way of reducing costs while maintaining the convenience of on-site eating.

The recession has also provided many companies with an opportunity to cast a magnifying glass over their costs and to discern where savings can be made, drawing value from every service. Workplace catering has not been viewed as a service which can be sacrificed – it is too ingrained as a fundamental service and an important employee benefit – but there has been a growing tendency to look to foodservice providers to bundle additional soft and hard services, thus rationalising suppliers and reducing costs.

It is clear that the skills required within foodservice go hand in hand with many soft services; as an example, cleaning requirements match the high levels of cleaning required in the kitchen and front-of-house reception and security evolves from the customer service mindset and can-do attitude required in hospitality. This multi-service tendency is one reason why larger companies have been able to better ride the storm of the recession, helping their clients to reduce costs and their customers to make savings.

Value issues
Today there is a delicate balance between value and values. While some employees look to buy the cheapest option at their workplace eatery, to others values are more important: choosing ethically traded, sustainably sourced or locally produced food. This tends to mirror employees’ high street behaviour.

Contract caterers need to echo this choice within the workplace, catering for those for whom price is a deciding factor as well as for those whose values take precedence. Although for many employees, sustainable, ethical or local sourcing will not influence what they buy on a daily basis, the choice must be available every day of the week and contract caterers must be seen to align their offers with widely available high street offers. Similarly, while vegetarian meals typically only account for 8 to 10% of sales, it is today taken for granted that a workplace caterer will offer vegetarian options on a daily basis.

Healthy options are also expected: today’s workplace caterer must take into consideration that many employees will eat five – or even up to ten – of their weekday meals at the workplace. For this reason, salad bars have become a prerequisite rather than a luxury, and ‘easy-win’ healthy options, such as low fat mayonnaise, are popular as they make it easy for employees to eat healthily while maintaining choice. There is an expectation that a foodservice provider actively thinks about the health and wellbeing of its clients’ employees, for example through reducing fat and salt contents and making everyday meals healthy. Supporting and enabling informed choice through nutritional labelling, including information such as calorie labelling and GDAs, such as those to which the average consumer has become accustomed on the high street and in large supermarkets, means that employees can eat with confidence at work, safe in the knowledge that their food has been freshly prepared with nutrition front of mind.

Foodservice providers’ attention to health and nutrition and also to sustainable, ethical and local sourcing is often seen as a way of assisting companies to achieve their corporate responsibility (CR) targets. Caterers are expected to facilitate CR initiatives including gaining Marine Stewardship Council Chain of Custody, supporting ethical organisations such as the Fairtrade Foundation and Rainforest Alliance, and supporting British and local farmers, growers and producers. In this way, caterers become workplace CR partners and facilitators.

Changing demand
Gathering insights from clients through tailored research is fundamental to aligning the catering offer with their needs, ascertaining, for example, whether provenance, value or sustainability is the top priority for a company. Research among consumers is equally important so that the daily menus can be tailored to employees’ wants and needs.

Research conducted by Compass Group UK & Ireland shows the clear presence of an ‘indulgence curve’ where spend and indulgence increase throughout the week. The start of the week, often following a fairly expensive and somewhat indulgent weekend, is when employees are at their most thrifty and healthy. Later in the week, employees feel justified to reward themselves for their hard work and begin the weekend early with a treat or two and more premium options - thus workplace caterers’ menus must reflect this.

Similarly, research shows that there is a growing tendency to ‘graze’ throughout the day. As people’s working days are longer, busier and more flexible, employees reach more for snacks throughout the day to top up their energy levels. This trend has blurred the traditional eating times of the day and, as such, a variety of healthy and indulgent snacks must be widely available on site.

In addition to all of the challenges involved in providing a workplace catering offer which rivals the high street in terms of variety, value and food trends, attracting top chefs can present a hurdle. But what can be mistaken as an unglamorous sister of the world of restaurant dining offers chefs a work-life balance which would be inconceivable in the 24/7 hotel environment. Contract catering certainly requires highly skilled, innovative chefs; and menu development requires wide variety and high standards on a daily basis.

Meeting all the expectations of a discerning and critical crowd of employees is essential. They will eat on-site only if it remains a better offer than the high street – and that is undeniably a challenge for even the biggest catering providers.

Andrew Barry is Managing Director, Foodservices, at Eurest Services.