A healthy lunch offer strengthens your employee loyalty

What did you have for lunch today? A quick sandwich in front of the computer? A bland menu in the canteen? Or did you skip the meal altogether because there was no time between meetings and deadlines? Office lunch is a thorny issue for many employees because the choice often has to be made between nutrient-poor fast food meals and the extra time required to cook or pre-cook. 

This is exactly why a healthy lunch offer in the company is an excellent opportunity to offer the team a delicious and healthy benefit that not only strengthens employee loyalty , but also provides a large portion of other advantages. 

Anyone who is an employee today has different demands on everyday working life than was the case in the past. This is particularly true for the younger generations, for whom a healthy work-life balance is paramount, but who at the same time identify strongly with their job. Companies that want to make their employees happy - and thus want to keep them loyal - are therefore well advised not to skimp on the benefits to show how much each individual team member is valued. 

Sad but true: Only one in ten employees in Austria feels an emotional bond with their employer, as a Gallup study found in 2023. And because, as is well known, the way to the heart is through the stomach, we will now take a closer look at how a healthy team lunch can contribute to better employee retention and what other advantages ensure that the investment pays off across the board. 

But the positive effect on employer branding is not everything. How we eat lunch has an impact on our mental well-being, because it has been proven that social contacts make us happier. But what we eat is also known to play an important role in how we feel, how productive we are and how well we deal with stress and other challenges. 

While ready meals usually contain a lot of salt, sugar and saturated fats and are also highly industrially processed, even reheated food from the day before only provides you with part of the original nutrients. What the body needs are natural and fresh ingredients that provide it with all the necessary macro and micronutrients to stay healthy and efficient in everyday life - and especially at work. Because stress resistance, creativity, motivation and energy levels are all directly linked to nutrition. 

The quality of the food is also a big factor. Organically grown fruit and vegetables are not only better for the body and health, but also contain fewer harmful nitrates and pesticides, are therefore better tolerated by many allergy sufferers and also pollute the environment significantly less. 

In short: A balanced organic lunch in the office ensures more productivity, resilience and inventiveness of the employees - and also improves the team dynamics and the bond with the company. A culinary all-rounder, so to speak.