How food is influencing the Future of Work

Challenge

ezCater is a large, nationwide brand. However, the company was eager to break into broader trends happening in the Future of Work. We also had a goal to build more relationships with national business media. Fast-moving changes around the return to in-person work, inflation, and the job market meant we needed to carve out an adaptable role for ezCater in the conversation.

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Strategy

We needed to find a concrete way to tie ezCater directly to the trends impacting today’s workforce, highlighting their value to the industry and reaching beyond catering. We developed a data campaign that surveyed 1,000 workers across the U.S. in a variety of industries. The results uncovered valuable insights showing the impact of food on workday productivity, its influence on employee engagement, and ways businesses could use the lunch hour to bring teams together. 

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For example, the data uncovered that 1 in 10 American workers NEVER takes a lunch break away from their desk, despite nearly 8 in 10 saying a break improves their productivity. Nearly a quarter of workers also reported that they would return to the office full-time if free, catered lunches were available. Moreover, the data uncovered compelling generational differences in lunch break habits showing that 1 in 4 Gen Z employees worry that lunch makes them look bad at work.

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Impact

We issued The Lunch Report as a downloadable takeaway in July 2022. We also enlisted Chief Demand Officer Diane Swint and Chief People & Culture Officer Janine Allo to act as spokespeople, given their first-hand knowledge of the challenges facing ezCater’s customers and the modern-day workforce.

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In pitching the report out, we secured numerous top-tier national and workplace-focused stories within the first weeks alone  — including CNBC, Forbes, Fox Business, WorkLife, and HR Dive. 

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Importantly, the narratives linked ezCater squarely to the business-level conversations happening right now about how to recruit and retain employees and how to “earn workers’ commutes” into the office. 

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