How many snacks and drinks should you provide for your office? And should your pantry budget be based on total headcount or the number of people actually coming into the office?
With almost 20 years working in workplace food, Yordar has helped Australian businesses manage office pantry, catering and employee food programs.
We've put together some practical benchmarks to help businesses plan their office pantry more accurately.
Yordar's Office Pantry Benchmarks
As a practical starting point, we generally recommend:
1.2 snacks per employee per office day
This means an office with an average daily attendance of 100 people should initially plan for approximately 120 snacks per day.
2 beverages per employee per office day
The same 100-person office could initially plan for approximately 200 beverages per day, depending on the type of drinks provided and what other options are available.
These are starting benchmarks rather than fixed rules. Actual consumption will vary depending on your employees, product selection, office attendance and what other food and drinks are provided.
Use Office Attendance, Not Just Headcount
One of the biggest changes we've seen with hybrid working is the difference between total employee headcount and actual office attendance.
A company might employ 250 people but only have an average of 150 people attending the office each day.
Planning pantry quantities for all 250 employees could result in significant over-ordering and unnecessary waste.
For this reason, we recommend using employee-days when planning pantry consumption.
An employee-day simply means one employee attending the workplace for one day.
For example:
150 employees × 5 office days = 750 employee-days per week.
This provides a much more useful starting point for pantry planning than simply using the company's total headcount.
Example: 100 People Per Day
If your workplace averages 100 people in the office each day, across five days that's:
500 employee-days per week
Using our starting benchmarks:
Snacks: 500 × 1.2 = approximately 600 snacks per week
Beverages: 500 × 2 = approximately 1,000 beverages per week
These numbers provide an initial ordering guide. Once the pantry has been operating for a while, actual consumption and ordering data should be used to refine the quantities.
Hybrid Offices Need Different Ordering Patterns
It's also important not to assume attendance is evenly distributed throughout the week.
For example, a 250-person company might have:
Monday: 100 people
Tuesday: 180 people
Wednesday: 200 people
Thursday: 180 people
Friday: 80 people
That's 740 employee-days per week, despite the company having 250 employees.
It's also clear that substantially more stock will be required Tuesday to Thursday than on Friday.
Ordering and replenishment should reflect these attendance patterns.
What Should an Office Pantry Include?
There isn't one perfect pantry mix for every workplace, but most Australian office pantry programs include some combination of:
Snacks: Chips, popcorn, biscuits, chocolate, nuts, muesli bars, protein bars and healthier snack alternatives.
Cold Drinks: Still and sparkling water, soft drinks, juice, kombucha and other packaged beverages.
Fruit: Fresh seasonal fruit as an alternative to packaged snacks.
Milk: Full cream, light and lactose-free dairy milk, together with plant-based alternatives such as oat, almond and soy.
Coffee & Tea: Coffee beans or pods, tea and associated products.
Breakfast: Some workplaces also provide cereals, oats, yoghurt, bread, spreads and other breakfast products.
The right mix ultimately depends on employee preferences, workplace culture and budget.
More Choice Doesn't Always Mean a Better Pantry
One thing we've learned from managing workplace pantry programs is that having an enormous product range isn't necessarily better.
Too many similar products can result in slow-moving stock, expired products, higher costs and unnecessary waste.
A better approach is to establish a strong core range and then use actual consumption and employee feedback to refine it.
Products that consistently disappear quickly may need increased quantities, while products regularly left behind should be reduced or replaced.
Make Your Pantry More Data-Driven Over Time
Benchmarks are most useful when setting up a new pantry or when there isn't enough historical information available.
Once a workplace has been operating for several weeks or months, actual data becomes much more valuable.
Businesses should monitor which products are being ordered regularly, weekly quantities, products that regularly run out, slow-moving products, pantry expenditure, office attendance, employee feedback and wastage.
The goal should be to gradually move from estimated consumption to actual consumption.
This can improve product availability while reducing unnecessary expenditure and waste.
About These Benchmarks
These figures are intended as practical planning benchmarks based on Yordar's experience working with Australian workplace food and pantry programs.
They are not fixed industry standards. Actual consumption can vary depending on office size, location, attendance, employee preferences, workplace culture and product mix.
Yordar will continue to review and update these benchmarks as workplace food patterns evolve.