Building Workplace Culture Around High-Quality Food
Great meals bring families and friends together, so why not coworkers?
Food plays a significant role in workplace culture by promoting interaction, camaraderie, and inclusivity, reflecting workplace value and diversity within the organization – all of which influence employee morale and collaboration. At fuelgood, we recognize this importance and strive to build a positive environment for teams to thrive. We achieve this by using high-quality fresh ingredients, having a dedicated staff that goes above and beyond, and creating an inviting atmosphere. This article will explore how we make this happen through our menu planning and development process.
Dynamic & Sustainable Menu Planning
Keeping visitors interested in workplace dining is a driving factor for our approach to planning and developing a menu. We base our strategy on the research and practice of dietary preferences, culturally-based needs, trending foods and recipes, nutritional restrictions, and providing options that avoid major allergens. Highlighting the local farms, vendors, and products we source from increases the sense of community that visitors feel when engaging in their workplace dining experience. For instance, a team member might get excited to learn that the vendor they buy produce from at their local farmers market is also the provider of the key ingredients in their favorite lunchtime meal. Our approach is seasonally driven, which adds a dynamic layer to the rotating menus, all while avoiding menu fatigue. Most people want to eat different meals day after day, and we understand that our bodies’ needs shift throughout the seasons. So, we regularly update our menus while considering the range of options for all dietary. Rotation and seasonality allow us to provide a variety of foods essential to a happy mood and overall well-being.
Café & Restaurant Format
Salad bars with great options are always a treat when you want to take charge of your meal. We want to ensure this option is available, but we look to provide a more guest-friendly approach using a familiar format of a café or restaurant. It enhances the overall perception of the experience and provides our staff with opportunities to talk about menu items from a made-to-order station or hot food line.
A café or restaurant environment allows various breakfast, lunch, and beverage offerings to co-exist easily. Each meal period has hot food stations, build-your-own stations, and grab-and-go items. Classic items like scrambled eggs, breakfast sausages (including vegetarian versions), fresh fruit, build-your-own omelets, and parfaits or açaí cups are available for breakfast. We promote a weekly rotating menu for lunch that pulls inspiration from global cuisines to cover a wide range of options. Additionally, we incorporate staff favorites like Taco Tuesday or Sushi Friday. Build-your-own sandwiches, pizzas, and ramen bowls are also available for convenient and personalized offerings. At our barista bar, you can find freshly made smoothies, coffee, tea, juices, and seasonal or promotional beverages like Turmeric or Pumpkin Lattes.
A self-serve component that guests can use to help themselves to freshly made sandwiches, wraps, salads, housemade protein, granola bars, and a range of beverages could be a great addition. The display shelves can feature local brands and other curated food and drink options.
We prioritize seasonality and locality when designing our café and restaurant menus for sustainability, nutrition, and flavor. We also consider special occasions, weather, and social trends.
Food plays a pivotal role in shaping the development of cultures, as it not only sustains and nourishes populations but also serves as a profound expression of traditions and social norms.
On-site and Off-premise Catering
fuelgood offers catering services for both on-site and off-site occasions. Besides having guests come to a location for their meal, fuelgood can also bring the food to them. The catering service includes managing orders for multiple floors of conference rooms, common areas, on-site meetings, and events and providing catering and staffing for off-site galas and corporate functions. The core daily items are the main components of the menu, with monthly specials added to give variety and a dynamic aspect to the menu.
fuelgood’s Experience Managers can customize the menus for full-service events to accommodate the theme, budget, and special requests.
Culinary Pop-ups & Activations
Expanding menu offerings and adding unique and authentic flavors is a great way to excite your guests. One effective way to achieve this is by partnering with local chefs, restaurants, and vendors. These partnerships create opportunities for your guests to try something outside of the routine, and they help market the vendor by getting in front of a new demographic. fuelgood has partnered with the talented force behind Lets Talk Womxn organization and the community that assembles Chicago Chefs Cook to provide these activations. We carefully vet our partnerships to ensure that we offer only the high-quality food and culinary connections that Chicago offers. We also regularly work with an extensive list of local and minority-owned bakeries, beverage vendors, and local farm suppliers.
Our team, along with our partners, can also offer interactive culinary and mixology demonstrations. Some of the fun activities that we can organize include pasta-making classes, salsa competitions, basic knife skills, crafting cocktails and mocktails, technique classes, and more.
Are you looking to build up your culture and offer amenities your team can’t resist coming into the office for?
