FINDING THE RIGHT SNACK AND BEVERAGE PROGRAM FOR YOUR COMPANY

We know that attracting and keeping engaged, productive employees,

is top of mind for every company. This starts with creating a happy

work environment that supports your employees’ health so they can

stay focused on their jobs. Easier said than done, right? A recent

Gallup Study cites that about 71% of all employees in the United States

are not fully engaged at work, yet companies who DO have engaged

employees outperform those who don’t by 202%. So how can we

bridge that huge gap?

Fortunately, many companies realize that it’s a worthy investment to

put money and resources into ensuring employee satisfaction,

productivity, morale, and a positive office atmosphere. Offering

employee perks is an easy way to do this, and one of the most basic

perks is keeping them well-nourished and caffeinated (or at least

hydrated). By not providing satisfying food and beverage choices,

you’re guaranteeing your employees will be leaving the office multiple

times a day to seek out snacks, a coffee break, or lunch. The key to

keeping employees at their desks and working? Providing a quality

snack and beverage service in-house!

Well-Nourished Employees are Happy Employees

It’s not just about giving away free food — it’s about making

employees feel that their company cares about their well-being so

that they LOVE coming to work everyday! Building office morale

means taking care of employees’ health first — job satisfaction

won’t come if employees often feel tired, hungry, stressed-out and

unappreciated. Companies like Google and Facebook are notorious

for this type of perk — from a plethora of snacks and beverages to

catered meals to dry cleaners and massage on campus. But you

don’t need to go all out to achieve the same results for your

company. Office managers of many smaller companies make

weekly Whole Foods or Costco runs, armed with lists of their teams’

collected favorite foods. But this takes a lot of time, energy, and

manpower. The solution is a subscription-based delivery service

that takes care of EVERYTHING for you — snack delivery, coffee

machine maintenance, unloading, and kitchen set-up.

An Office Beverage and Snack delivery service provides more bang for

the perk than things like an office foosball table or beer fridge. Why?

There’s a direct correlation to increased productivity, lower employee

turnover rate, lower sickness rates, and higher employee satisfaction.

Choosing a snack delivery service that offers many healthy options,

such as protein bars, dried fruit, fresh fruit, trail mixes, etc, shows that

you also care about the health of your workers.

Choose a delivery service that offers high-quality coffee, tea, and snacks

and equally important — handles everything for you. Most delivery

services offer a regular delivery schedule to ensure that the kitchen is

constantly being replenished with snacks and drinks. What you might

not have considered is that they also take care of all that goes with it;

providing napkins, cups, creamer, coffee stirrers, sweetener packets.

Delivery reps deliver, unload, and tidy up the breakroom/kitchen for

you so you can keep your attention on your other tasks. Coffee

equipment is maintained for you – no more worries about bad tasting

coffee due to dirty machines, broken water filters, or busted parts. Also,

most offer a choice of coffee machines, from the traditional brewers to

sophisticated single-cup makers or even fancy cappuccino frothers.

What to Look For in Your Delivery Service

Full-service snack programs similarly take the burden off of office

managers who have to keep track of food allergies and employee brand

preferences. Custom-design and then keep your regular order, which

can include a mix of organic, vegan, and gluten-free snack options.

Services provided by most beverage and snack programs:

• A la carte or full-service options — choose individually packaged snacks and delivery of hand-selected coffee, or get a large variety of coffee and snack types and brands, delivered in bulk.

• Coffee equipment troubleshooting and maintenance

• Food storage solutions if you need it — baskets, deli coolers, and shelving units

• Weekly inventory, ordering, delivery, stocking and rotation is handled for you

• Snack program design can include organic, vegan, gluten-free, and nut-free options

• Customized reporting on comprehensive usage, history and product solution gives you data on how your investment is working out for your employees

Delivery services are extremely helpful in taking over the planning and execution of an office snack program. But with such extensive choices, it’s important to understand your company's goals and needs before jumping right in. There are many options that are available to customers that let your company customize its own personal service to meet each and every need.

You and your company have made the decision to pursue an Office Beverage and Snack delivery service. Now is the time to decide what your goals are while obtaining this service. There are many considerations to make during this process: budgeting, products, frequency, samples, etc. There are countless options of snack and beverage delivery services that allow for customization for each customer. So it helps to take a few steps before reaching out to companies. First, sort out an estimated budget per month to spend on the service to help narrow down your choices.

When incorporating coffee and snacks into your office as an employee benefit, trying to meet everyone’s expectations on a limited budget can be a headache. To help you out with the process, we spoke with our Associated Service’s Snack Specialist Kimberly Lenz to see what advice she could give us about how to stay within your office budget, and here are her Top Five tips:

So Now That You’re Actually Switching Over

1. Figure out a realistic budgetWhen putting together a budget for your office, you have to be honest with your spending. Kim suggests first establishing a dollar per day per employee amount that you’re willing to spend. Be sure to budget for higher-quality products you want to provide for your employees (i.e. organic, gluten-free). Finding a balance between maximizing your budget and meeting your office priorities is the most efficient way to establish a working budget. 2. Keep current inventoryIt’s wasteful to be buy more than your employees can consume. Your office manager (or whoever is in charge of general budget) should know the amount of all the supplies in the office and when they need to be reordered so that there is no confusion. Microsoft® Excel has an excellent selection of budget templates that can help you and your office stay on track with your spending.

3. Be aware of the cost of quality

Healthier products like fresh fruits and nutrient-packed snacks

usually have a heftier price tag than your usual soda and chips. Be

mindful with the dollar per day per employee rule. Spending $4-$5

a day per employee rather than the regular $3 per day usually gets

you healthier options like yogurts, bottle drinks, and high protein

energy bars.

4. Expect to make changes

Your office budget is going to

be changing with the increased

growth of your company. The

more new hires in your office,

the more the budget will

increase. Plan ahead for this, as

many companies we work with

usually increase their budget

from $700-$1000 per month.

5. Start a review cycle to look at

change impact

Keeping track of your spending

and financials within the office

budget on a spreadsheet allows

you to look back at previous

months and show where all the

money is going. You can see the

office spending habits and make

positive changes using this data.

Did You Know?Coffee and tea provide different health benefits — but is one necessarily better for you than the other? Both have been around for thousands of years and consumed by countless generations. They are still among the most popular beverages in the world. What benefits do they provide?

Coffee • Caffeine provides mental alertness, energy, and focus. • Drinking it regularly can reduce risk of Alzheimer’s Disease, dementia, and Type 2 Diabetes• Keeps your heart healthy by reducing risk of heart failure• Can help asthma sufferers, because it relaxes the airways• Reduces migraines by constricting blood vessels in the brain (and can alleviate hangovers for the same reason!)

Tea• Antioxidant-rich and chock full of cancer-preventing ingredients like polyphenol compounds• Therapeutic and medicinal, with both soothing and rejuvenating qualities• Produces relaxing and calming effects• Polyphenols in green tea, and theaflavins and thearubigins in black tea, contain free radicals that might protect cells from DNA damage.

In general, tea is considered to be the healthier drink. But as long as you aren’t drinking your coffee and tea with tons of sugar and fattening creamers, your daily habit of drinking either won’t harm you and may even help you. Keeping both options in your office break room gives employees a personal choice of health benefit every morning.

Once a budget has been set for all of the employees in your office, you can decide on the types of snacks and drinks — this is the fun part! This is where health and quality considerations will really come into play. An employee who is eating a substantial amount of nutritious food is more productive and focused throughout the work day. Making healthy choices while also considering the varying tastes of all of your employees is the challenge. It will be impossible to cater to everybody’s wants, but try to strike a balance between the health nuts and the foodies in the office. Millennials have been a bit typecast as the most health-conscious and driven in the workplace. While some people are constantly checking the ingredients of everything they put in their mouths, there are still those who just want a plain old bag of chips. Providing a diverse selection of snacks and drinks helps give these two personas options in the office, and this is important for your snack program to succeed in your organization.

Snacks and Beverages Options

Some of the best snacks you can get for your office are those that are loaded with protein that will give your employees enough energy to power through the day. You also want to be mindful of the price per item, as we mentioned earlier. Some of the popular brands and products carried today meet these guidelines, such as:

• KIND Bars• Clif Bars• Peeled dried fruit snacks• Justin’s nut butters

You’ll also be able to customize your hot beverage selection, with many available options for different brews, flavors, and brands of ground coffee as well as an endless selection of flavors of tea. Coffee and tea remain equally popular, with tea getting the edge over coffee in terms of its overall health benefits. But how do these benefits compare?

Once you’ve chosen a third party provider to sort out all that goes

along with an office beverage and snack service, you’re well on your

way to increased employee happiness and productivity! While your

weekly or monthly delivery is now assured, there are some things you

can do to stay on top of your snack and beverage program. While these

services are quite helpful, human error still occurs so fact checking each

delivery is a great way to avoid errors or oversights. This might consist

of monitoring the monthly budget or checking the inventory of your

deliveries. These simple actions can be the best way to avoid any extra

fees or miscommunication with your providers:

• Check your inventory

Keeping tabs on the food that comes with each delivery ensures you

are receiving all you’re paying for with no opportunity for errors.

Keeping an updated Excel document that tracks what you’re ordering

and what you’re receiving is a great way to keep tabs on your service.

• Expect your budget to change with growth and different productsAs your company grows, so will your budget. When you hire more

employees and expand your business, you should expect to expand

your budget to account for the extra heads you’re feeding. Also, as

products become available or unavailable, you must keep in mind that

prices for substitutes or seasonal products will change periodically.

Sustaining a Delivery Service

• Make sure you are responding to what your employees want

Your employees might not like every product that is ordered every

month. It is important to regularly poll your employees on their food

and drink preferences, especially since this program is designed for

their satisfaction. Try out new products, and if your employees don’t

like it, you can always switch it out for something else the next month.

You can also look into options for getting free samples of new

products from your provider before you decide. Your employees will

surely be happy to offer their sample tasting services.

We know that choosing a beverages and snack service is challenging

with the dizzying array of options out there. Hopefully these tips and

delivery program breakdown provide you with the tools you need to

make the best possible choice for the happiness and productivity of

your employees. If you need help or would like to ask more questions

about customizable delivery services, please contact Associated to

schedule a consultation at your convenience:

feedback@associatedcoffee.com