The lunch break, a workday staple that has fallen by the wayside of the remote and hybrid working environment for many business professionals, carries a value beyond mere caloric intake.
The circadian aspect of breaking work at the same time for a fixed period every day, while informally conversing with coworkers over a meal, can make a person’s working experience much better. However, the benefits of a hybrid or remote workstyle environment — especially around cost savings at lunch — are noticeable for those who have that flexibility.
As many companies push for a return to the office, persuading employees probably isn’t through foosball tables or baristas, but possibly an adequate lunch break — and picking up their tab.
According to ezCater’s 2024 Lunch Report, inflation’s impact on the price of lunch, a metric that surveyors refer to as “lunchflation,” has resulted in lunch being something employees, especially those who work in offices, must plan more frequently. Over three-quarters (78%) of respondents said inflation has changed their lunch habits, but remedies to swallow lunchflation have varied.
Lunchflation sees costs and time allocated toward meal prep increase
As a result of rising costs for food prepared at home and restaurants, over a third of employees have chosen cheaper options when planning their lunches. However, only a minority seem to be taking any meaningful action. Only 31% said they are buying lunch less frequently, and only a quarter (25%) said they are implementing a stricter budget for lunch at work.
However, the extra preparation employees are taking to remedy rising food costs is impacting them negatively on multiple fronts outside of their finances, they said. Nearly three-quarters (73%) said increased meal prepping has impacted their free time, and more than half (56%) said prepping their work lunches has caused stress.
A significant portion of that stress and missed personal time from meal prepping is being felt just before work and when employees are away from the office, as 44% say they feel rushed to prepare meals in the morning and 29% said meal prepping impacts the time they get to spend with their families.
Interestingly, a large majority (83%) of employees who make lunch at home, presumably in an attempt to save on food costs, don’t ever eat “some” of the food they bring. This is partially because their lunches are being stolen by coworkers, an incident that happened to 29% of employees, 86% of whom said it happened to them multiple times.
Could free lunch satisfy RTO pushback?
While employees are spending more and getting seemingly less ROI on their lunch breaks, the costs of lunch, regardless of whether it is brought or bought, are high. While employees who have lunch costs paid for are much more likely to want to work in the office, those costs, whether they are paid for by the employee or the company, are high.
The average spend by employees on an outside lunch at the office is $12.67, and on average that is purchased on a twice-weekly basis. Surveyors also quantified lunch spending for employees who bring their lunch from home monthly. That figure came in at $282.
This could provide an opportunity for companies who are looking to get their employees back into the office. If they can cover lunch costs, employees are much more likely to want to spend the majority of their time in the office. Fifty-eight percent of hybrid employees said they would spend the majority of their workdays on-site if they were offered free lunch, a stipend that surveyors say can set a company back $10–20 per day, per employee.
Break time allocation and generational approach
Despite 98% of employees saying a lunch break will help them refuel, almost half (49%) skip lunch at least once a week. For those taking breaks, a majority are done while working, as fewer than 4 in 10 (38%) said they physically step away from their desk to eat daily.
The range of length of breaks is considerable among those who take them. The most common length of time for an adequate lunch break was between 45 minutes to 1 hour, taken by a third (33%) of respondents.
Survey results around Gen Z are a bit quirky. Half (50%) of Gen Z said lunch is their favorite part of the workday, but they are also most likely to skip both breakfast and/or lunch when compared to their older coworkers. Seventeen percent of Gen Z’ers say they feel too guilty to take a lunch break, which is considerably higher than millennials (12%), Gen X (9%), and boomers (4%).
Though CFOs have guided their peers to fill the office with healthy snacks to keep their employees productive and promote well-being, unhealthy office snacks are still popular. Over three-quarters (76%) of employees say they have a “little treat” each week in the office, while 3 in 10 (30%) say they have one every day. While surveyors don’t speculate much on why, they do note that Gen Z is the least likely to indulge in treats in the office, but they are the most likely to spend money on treats outside the office during the workday.
ezCater surveyed 1,000 full-time employees nationwide, and 4,000 workers across 10 different major U.S. cities for regional-specific lunch break data not mentioned in this story.
