Napoleon said that an army marches on its stomach. Are civilian chief
executives as enlightened? The standard staff meal once consisted of limp
pizzas sweating under a heating lamp and Fifties-style glop doled out by
stony-faced staff, with boiled-to-death frozen veg as an expensive add-on.
For some unlucky employees, it still does.
But the best employers now provide much more: chefs, theme days, superfood
salads, deli bars with made-to-order sandwiches. “We are providing people
with breakfast, lunch and sometimes dinner as well,” says Robert Kirkby,
chef-director of the London-based works caterer Lexington. The modern office
canteen, rebranded as a “restaurant”, has to compete for price and quality
with the high street chains such as Pret A Manger and Caffè Nero, and with
supermarket takeaway meals. It may have to feed shift workers of many
nationalities at all hours, as well as meeting “green” corporate pledges on
healthy eating and sustainability. But can it do all that?
Last year, more than 1.62 billion meals were eaten in staff restaurants. As
the recession worsens, some staff are opting for subsidised in-house fare
rather than forking out at cafés and sandwich bars. Others are going farther
and bringing their own food to work to save money.
Belts are being tightened everywhere. Caterers involved in the £4 billion
work-food market in Britain say that subsidies have been falling away for
about the past five years or so. They need to make food go farther and keep
costs low, yet employers still want to attract good staff, keeping them near
their desks and well fed.
In the post-chips-with-everything world, here is a selection of what various
companies have on the menu . . .
Google, London
From the Fairtrade chocolate to the in-house sashimi, everything is free in
the state-of-the-art staff restaurant at Google’s London headquarters in
Victoria. The perk of limitless high-quality food began when the company was
competing for workers at the start of the dot-com boom in California, and
continued as the internet giant spread around the globe.
The fifth-floor, glass-fronted canteen in London is light, bright and
colourful, with table football and a blue-baize billiards table at one end.
Fresh salads and fruit stretch almost as far as the eye can see. Every dish,
hot or cold, is colour-coded for its nutritional value. Red essentially
means “pudding” — Bailey’s cheesecake, etc — while most main meals are
green-for-go. There are no deep-fat fryers; the only chips here are the
silicon variety.
“Googlers” at the 600-strong office check the queues on webcam to avoid
waiting, and wander in throughout the day to sit at chairs moulded from red,
blue or yellow plastic and tap away at their laptops, perhaps with a drink
from the loose-leaf tea station, a bowl of yoghurt and fresh berries and a
selection of crudités to dip into a courgette tapenade — or, alternatively,
a packet of crisps.
The informal conviviality of good food is more than a perk. It is part of
Google’s work ethos. “We bring clients here to talk because it has such a
good atmosphere,” says Tom Dunn, one of the design team. “We see a lot more
of each other and talk because we don’t go out to lunch,” says his colleague
Chris Phillips.
One-off “specials” are held to mark, for instance, Elvis Presley’s birthday or
Chinese New Year, and on Thursdays there are regular themed meals such as
curry or Greek food. Bottled beers, cask ales, pizzas and nachos are put out
from 4.30pm every Friday for TGIG — “Thank Google it’s Friday”.
“I was told to get it right and then focus on the budget,” says Adrian Evans,
the executive chef. His brief was to make staff feel at home, as well as
fulfilling the sustainable food values that are pasted on the walls.
Ingredients are sourced as locally as possible; the eggs, chicken and pork are
free-range and Evans estimates that 80 per cent of the fruit and vegetables
are organic. Waste is recycled or composted and there are sauce dispensers,
not sachets; china rather than disposable cups and plates.
But some people are never happy. The suggestions board, otherwise full of
compliments, includes a plaintive cry for more “boring lettuce” on the salad
bar, alongside the trendy leaves.
Travelex, Surrey
Butcher’s sausages and mash is the homely hot dish of the day in the small
canteen at the head office of Travelex, the foreign exchange company. It
comes with fresh veg — red cabbage, carrots and courgettes — and gravy. Two
kinds of hot home-made quiche, salads and sandwiches made to order are the
alternatives. The food is simple, tasty, mostly fresh and a main meal costs
£2.65.
The small kitchen is utilised to the full to make the food in-house. Rather
than going on a two-month menu plan of pre-prepared food, the canteen’s
ingredients are bought weekly at wholesale markets and from local shops.
Today’s herby sausages came from a nearby butcher, rather than in frozen
catering packs.
Freshly made sultana muffins, a Victoria sponge and paninis are on today, as
well as Fairtrade coffee from the “bean-to-cup” machine. The staff are
friendly and chat to their customers.
Atmosphere and good service are important, says Jonathan Gawthrop, from the
staff restaurant’s catering company, Pabulum. “This is about keeping the
workforce on the go. The hardest thing is to ensure that eating here every
day is not boring,” he says.
When Pabulum took over at Travelex three years ago, the menu was on the lines
of brought-in pies, deep-fried sausages and chips with everything. “Fresh
food, freshly made” may sound an obvious mantra, but it was a necessary
revolution if the canteen was to compete with local cafés and Waitrose and
Tesco Metro down the road.
Melvyn Beckwith from the accounts department takes a daily break from his desk
to have a bowl of soup — today it’s cauliflower — and bread for £1.20. He
likes the canteen’s variety and the friendly atmosphere, although he does
wonder whether the food suits everyone. “It’s traditional British and we
have the United Nations working here. I’m not sure they could cater for all
the nationalities,” he says. The staff work seven-and-a-half-hour shifts and
several people bring their own food to eat in the canteen and watch the
plasma television screen.
So far the recession has not produced a decline in custom, with costs kept
down and special deals — “8 hot meals for the price of 7” — pasted up on the
walls. The overall price is still subsidised.
Kwik-Fit call centre, Glasgow
The 900 Kwik-Fit Insurance call centre workers have an average age of 26.
Stuck out on a business park, they have little choice but to eat in-house.
Complaints about food used to top the agenda regularly at staff feedback
meetings.
In 2007 the company spent £500,000 changing its “school dinners” canteen into
a staff restaurant called Brokers’ Bistrot, which includes a deli counter
for made-to-order sandwiches and a “chef on stage” cooking dishes such as
chicken satay and prawn noodle stir-fry while you wait. People waiting can
ask the chef questions and take home recipe cards.
The meals are subsidised by 30 per cent, with free food on the Wednesday
before pay day and free fruit all the time. A new credit- crunch menu option
— £1.05 for the vegetarian dish, £1.49 for meat or fish — is a hit.
“The most popular dish that I’ve put on the menu is the simplest: macaroni
cheese,” says the chef, Keith Donaldson. “A lot of people say that they have
a hot lunch here, then a sandwich at home in the evening to save money.”
Running and subsidising the Bistrot costs the company £500,000 a year. June
Lynch, the finance director, argues that it is money well spent. “It’s the
one facility everyone uses,” she says. “We hope that it helps us to recruit
the best people and makes moving to another job harder.”
The place is busy even in the morning with porridge, a buffet of cereals and
fresh fruit, a “full Scottish” with local black pudding included, and eggs
cooked to order. The caterer, BaxterStorey, makes a point of providing good
breakfasts. Its own survey sugggested that more than a third of office
workers never eat breakfast or have it fewer than three times a week.
“People don’t realise how quickly their blood sugar drops, which stops them
concentrating,” says chief executive Alistair Storey.
As for sustainability, 85 per cent of the ingredients come from within 50
miles of the site. The cups and disposable containers are recyclable, used
coffee grounds are bagged up for staff to take away as fertiliser, and
“e-cubes” in the fridges reduce energy use by 20 per cent.
Reed Smith, London
City lunching is no longer a “brandies at 4pm” clientschmooze. For most
people, most days, a snatched half hour or a sandwich at the desk is the
norm. But the international law firm Reed Smith has nonetheless invested a
lot in a 120-seat, 31st-floor restaurant for the 650 workers at its office
in the new Broadgate Tower in the City.
The highest staff restaurant in the Square Mile, ThirtyOne is 10,000sq ft of
glamour, with views all the way to the North Downs on a good day. The food
covers everything from home-made yoghurt with seasonal compôtes to superfood
salads, deep-fried pollock and chips and a hot honey-baked ham sandwich with
home-made piccalilli.
“It’s quite a contrast from our last restaurant, which was in a basement,”
says Richard Swinburn, a partner in the firm. “People are here all through
the day.”
Phil Page, Reed Smith’s operations director in Europe and the Middle East,
says: “We wanted somewhere that could be a social hub. Modern work can be
quite isolating — we have become very specialist and we want to be able to
mix everybody together and get that cross-pollination.”
The food at ThirtyOne is smart but with a modern British feel, and has to
satisfy everyone in the building.
The two soups — asparagus and carrot and coriander — are fresh and tasty; the
fish and chips well done; a berry and lime smoothie refreshing. The
grab-and-go counter of sandwiches and salads is more tempting than the one
at Pret, and the prices are subsidised — a main course is less than £3.
There are pictures of suppliers, such as Secretts Farm in Surrey, and
instead of “healthy eating” labels there is a “stealthy eating” policy of
low salt and fresh ingredients, well prepared.
Dining is still part of the lawyer-client relationship but is mostly done
either in the canteen or in dining rooms on the floors above. “Gone are the
days of the three-hour lunch,” says Julia Edmonds from the catering company
Lexington, which has several blue-chip clients in the City. “They want it to
be lovely but simple, then back to work.”
The rhythms of a traditional week still apply to work food, though. Friday
means fish and chips, and the second half of the week requires a good
breakfast fry-up — particularly popular after the new City night out, on a
Thursday.
How does your staff restaurant measure up?
Send us your reviews — the good, the bad and the ugly — in no more than
150 words to mycanteen@thetimes.co.uk. The best will be published in the
food pages of times2.
Alternatively, bring your own...
Can’t face the canteen? Joanna Weinberg suggests some great ideas for the
perfect lunchbox
A lunchbox is a moveable feast to be enjoyed on a patch of grass or a bench
outside on a balmy day, at your desk when you’re up against it, avoiding
queues and noise at the canteen. View it as a bespoke treat rather than a
money-saver, and the only downside will be waiting until lunchtime to grab
the treasures within.
The best salad
The key with salad is to make sure that it can last the distance. You want it
to be crunchy and fresh, not floppy, and full of zesty flavours. Overlook
trendy leaves in favour of cheaper iceberg or mini gem lettuces. Instead of
separating them into leaves, chop them into small chunks. The same goes for
cucumber — don’t slice it but cut it into fat discs, then cube. Then build
your salad from crunchy, tasty ingredients: radishes, sprouting seeds,
crumbled feta, chopped celery, raw peas, finely chopped mint leaves, and
finally torn pitta bread and lardons, fried together until crisp. Beware of
ingredients that turn to mush: if you want to include avocado and tomato,
take them to work whole and chop them in at the last minute. All you need is
a well-seasoned lemon juice and olive oil dressing — take it in a small jam
jar.
The best sandwich
Don’t buy cheap bread. Thin slices full of preservatives are neither
nourishing nor filling. Instead, invest in a decent sourdough loaf — you can
freeze half and it makes the best toast, too. A really satisfying sandwich
is packed with strong flavours: think of mature Cheddar and salami with
chilli jam, leftover roast chicken and watercress, parma ham with pesto and
Parmesan. Take a few juicy extras to munch alongside, such as cornichons,
baby pickled onions and cherry tomatoes.
The best soup
Baby broad beans and peas can be turned into a filling, delicious soup from
frozen. Bring an equal amount of each almost to the boil in good chicken
stock (you need enough to nearly cover the vegetables). Turn off the heat
immediately and pulse to a thick, textured soup. Add finely chopped mint
leaves and a swirl of either olive oil or cream, seasoning to taste. It can
be enjoyed straight from the fridge or given a blast in a microwave.
The best pudding
Home-made flapjack is hard to beat. Oats are packed with energy, and the sugar
is a great pick-me-up. Include equal volumes of condensed milk and golden
syrup, and plenty of dark muscovado sugar along with oats and butter for a
delicious caramel flavour. Nuts and seeds can be added for energy to see you
through the afternoon.
