Providing meals at work can be a valuable employee benefit, but setting the right budget can be difficult — particularly in hybrid workplaces where office attendance changes throughout the week.
Rather than calculating an employee meal program based on total company headcount, a more accurate approach is to budget using employee-days: the number of employees actually attending the office multiplied by the number of days meals are provided.
This guide explains how to calculate an employee meal budget and compare different meal allowances for your workplace.
Learn more here
The cost of an employee meal program depends primarily on three things:
A simple formula is:
Weekly employee meal budget = Average daily attendance × Meal days per week × Meal allowance
For example, if an average of 100 employees attend the office three days per week and the company provides a $25 meal allowance:
100 employees × 3 days × $25 = $7,500 per week
That equates to approximately:
$32,475 per month using an average of 4.33 weeks per month.
$390,000 per year across 52 weeks.
An employee-day represents one employee attending the workplace for one day.
For example, if 100 employees attend the office three days per week:
100 employees × 3 days = 300 employee-days per week
Employee-days can be a more useful way to budget for staff meals than total company headcount because food expenditure is based on actual office attendance.
This becomes particularly important for hybrid workplaces.
A company may employ 500 people, for example, but if average weekly office attendance represents only 750 employee-days, budgeting for 2,500 employee-days would significantly overstate the amount of food required.
Once you know your weekly employee-days, calculating your staff meal budget is straightforward.
Weekly budget = Employee-days × Meal allowance
Here are some examples:
100 employee-days per week
$20 meal allowance = $2,000 per week
$25 meal allowance = $2,500 per week
$30 meal allowance = $3,000 per week
$35 meal allowance = $3,500 per week
250 employee-days per week
$20 meal allowance = $5,000 per week
$25 meal allowance = $6,250 per week
$30 meal allowance = $7,500 per week
$35 meal allowance = $8,750 per week
500 employee-days per week
$20 meal allowance = $10,000 per week
$25 meal allowance = $12,500 per week
$30 meal allowance = $15,000 per week
$35 meal allowance = $17,500 per week
1,000 employee-days per week
$20 meal allowance = $20,000 per week
$25 meal allowance = $25,000 per week
$30 meal allowance = $30,000 per week
$35 meal allowance = $35,000 per week
These figures are examples rather than recommended meal budgets. The appropriate allowance will depend on your location, food offering, employee expectations and the level of subsidy your business wants to provide.
There isn't one meal allowance that works for every workplace.
Some businesses fully subsidise employee meals, while others contribute a fixed amount and allow employees to pay the difference themselves.
When setting a staff meal allowance, consider:
Local food prices: Meal costs can vary considerably between locations and cities.
Type of meal: An individually ordered lunch, shared team meal and catered event may require different budgets.
Employee choice: Providing access to multiple restaurants and cuisines can require a different model from ordering the same shared meal for everyone.
Dietary requirements: Your program should accommodate common dietary requirements and preferences without creating unnecessary administration.
Company subsidy: Some businesses cover the entire meal while others provide a fixed daily allowance.
There are two common ways to provide staff meals at work.
Employees select their own meal from available restaurants or food providers.
This can provide greater choice and make it easier for employees to select meals that suit their dietary requirements and preferences.
Businesses can establish a fixed subsidy or allowance for each employee.
Shared meals are ordered for a team or office and delivered together.
This approach can work particularly well for team lunches, company-wide office days, meetings and occasions where eating together is part of the experience.
Many workplaces use a combination of both approaches depending on the day, team and purpose of the meal.
Hybrid work makes accurate attendance particularly important.
If your organisation has 300 employees, it doesn't necessarily make sense to calculate your office meal budget using all 300 employees five days per week.
Instead, estimate actual attendance.
For example:
Monday: 80 employees
Tuesday: 150 employees
Wednesday: 220 employees
Thursday: 180 employees
Friday: 70 employees
Total weekly attendance:
700 employee-days
At a $25 meal allowance:
700 × $25 = $17,500 per week
This approach allows the food budget to follow actual workplace usage rather than simply following total headcount.
As an employee meal program grows, the administrative work can also increase.
Managing individual restaurants or caterers can involve separate orders, invoices, dietary requirements, employee allowances and delivery coordination.
A centralised employee meal platform can bring these processes together.
Rather than workplace teams collecting individual meal selections manually, employees can place their own orders from available food providers.
Businesses can establish employee meal subsidies or spending limits rather than manually reconciling individual purchases.
Employees can select meals according to their own dietary requirements and preferences rather than workplace teams managing selections through spreadsheets or messages.
Multiple restaurants, caterers and meal providers can be accessed through a central system rather than requiring separate supplier relationships.
Instead of processing invoices from multiple food providers, purchases can be consolidated into a single monthly invoice.
Centralised purchasing provides greater visibility of employee meal expenditure across teams, offices and locations.
Employee meals don't necessarily need to operate separately from the rest of your workplace food program.
Many workplaces combine individual staff meals, shared team meals, office catering and pantry stocking as part of one overall employee food experience.
Centralising these services can also reduce the number of suppliers, invoices and systems workplace teams need to manage.
Yordar helps Australian workplaces manage employee meals, shared meals, catering and office pantry programs through one platform.
Employees can order their own meals from a curated network of food providers, while businesses maintain control over meal allowances and overall expenditure.
For workplaces wanting to bring more of their office food together, Yordar can also manage shared meals, catering and office pantry services through the same platform.
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