For a long time, workplace food and beverage has been framed as a perk – a nice-to-have that signals cultural generosity, a free lunch that helps with recruitment, or a coffee bar that makes the office feel a bit more like somewhere people want to be. That framing has started to feel inadequate.
What we’re seeing in our work – and in the wider research – is that F&B is quietly becoming one of the most consequential levers in workplace experience. Not just for attracting talent, but for sustaining performance, deepening social connection, and communicating organisational values. The question is no longer should we invest in food? but what are we trying to achieve with it?
The Performance Case
The link between nutrition and cognitive performance is well established, but it has historically been underutilised in workplace strategy. In high-output environments – where sustained focus, quick decision-making, and mental resilience are daily requirements – what people eat, when they eat it, and how they access food are not trivial concerns.
Research consistently shows that nutrient-rich diets support brain function, reduce fatigue, and improve mood and motivation. A 2025 Deliveroo for Work study found that 70% of employees cited health and nutrition as the most important role for food to play in their working day – outranking speed, variety, or cost. Circadian rhythm research adds another layer: the timing of food intake, and its macronutrient composition, directly affects alertness and energy across the working day in ways that few workplace programmes have yet to account for.
When we worked recently with a global hedge fund operating across multiple offices internationally, one of the themes the team was most energised to explore was the role food could play in supporting peak output – moving toward an F&B strategy that actively supported the cognitive and physical demands on their people.
Food as Social Infrastructure
The social dimension is equally important, and perhaps harder to design for.
There is strong evidence that informal social connection – the kind that happens spontaneously, away from meeting rooms and structured agendas – is a significant driver of trust, collaboration, and retention. Food is one of the most reliable catalysts for that kind of connection. Shared meals, destination dining spaces, and even a well-placed coffee bar can function as what sociologists call “third places” within the office: neutral ground where hierarchy flattens and relationships form.
It helps to think about workplace F&B across a spectrum – from high convenience at one end to high experience at the other – with the best strategies offering something at multiple points along it. Not every moment of the working day calls for the same kind of food interaction, and not every employee has the same relationship with time, preference, or social appetite.
At the experience end of that spectrum, organisations like Booking.com in Amsterdam have set a high bar. Their campus restaurant is designed around five themed zones and seasonal menus curated by guest chefs. GSK’s London headquarters integrates a chef’s table and farm-to-table dining directly into the building’s broader wellness offer.
But when there isn’t time to step away for an unhurried lunch, the social dining opportunity is still there. Sprint tables, for example, allow teams to make group takeaway orders to a reserved table – either on-floor or at a central location. Streamlining orders through single scheduled deliveries improves speed and efficiency as a faster, less elevated version of group dining. Community tables introduce a communal dining moment through pre-planned shared platters, rotating themes, and digital prompts that spark conversation across teams. These ideas also have the benefit of being easy to pilot and roll out.
Future of the Food Offer
Looking ahead, the trends shaping consumer food culture are beginning to make their way into the workplace – and they point toward something considerably more personalised and purposeful than what most organisations currently offer.
Functional foods and beverages are moving into the mainstream: drinks infused with adaptogens, nootropics, and probiotics that target specific cognitive or physiological outcomes are increasingly expected by a workforce that has grown up with them. Personalised nutrition – AI-driven dietary platforms, nutrigenomics, wearable-linked recommendations – is shifting from clinical contexts into consumer products, and the workplace is a natural next environment. Sustainable packaging and zero-waste catering models are becoming markers of organisational credibility, particularly for a Gen Z and Millennial workforce for whom food choices are bound up with values, identity, and wellbeing in ways that go well beyond calorie counts.
By 2028, this cohort will hold the majority of senior roles in most organisations. Their expectations of what a workplace food offer looks like – and what it says about the organisation offering it – are meaningfully different from what has come before.
An Untapped Power
Food deserves to be part of the strategic conversation about what the office is for. The organisations leading in this space are asking a different set of questions. Not just what food do we serve? but what do we want food to do? Do we want it to fuel performance? Generate connection? Reinforce culture? Signal our values? Attract the people we want to keep?
These questions are worth asking seriously – because food, it turns out, has an untapped power that most workplace strategies have yet to fully reckon with.
