If your work offered a take-dinner-home program, would you use it? - Take the hard work out of making dinner for five

Betonhaus

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If your work had a program where you could buy dinner to take home, either as hot-and-ready, prepared ingredients, or precooked-only, would you use it? Assuming that the ingredients and meals are largely at cost and there's a no-questions-asked policy (like if you're feeding neighbors or lots of kids). Larger hot meals would likely need to be booked in advanced, but the work would have a freezer of leftovers you can grab from.
 
Probably not, because it'd almost certainly be disgusting goyslop.
 
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Today? Probably not because it would likely be cuck portions and positively soylent ingredients barely fit to feed a pig. Back in the early 2000's though I worked at a place that had absolutely banging food for their employees which you could optionally get as takeaway. Quality ingredients, satisfying portions even for adult men with a healthy appetite and at absolutely ridiculous prices.
 
Assume that upper management also take advantage of the program, and they were unable to justify the expense of having two different menus
 
Isn't that just takeout with extra steps?
And with choice limitations. No way a non-restaurant employer offers more options than the drive home (or Uber Eats).

The only way this would be feasible is if you had a rotating schedule, like a school cafeteria. But just like a school cafeteria, you'll never make an economic profit because a portion of your customer base will be disinterested on every day. It would wind up being subsidized, which means the costs (quality) will be under constant pressure by management.

Even if you solve the choice and quality problem, I'm not buying from work unless it's also cheaper than a similar product I can pick up on the way home or have delivered. Convenience only carries you so far. If it's a hot meal, takeout/delivery will be hotter and fresher by the time I get home. If it's prepared/ready to heat, then there's a bunch of meal kit delivery services that do similar things; even supermarkets have meal kits now.

A general rule of business is not to expand into products that aren't directly tied to your core business, areas where you don't have synergy or a competitive advantage. So unless you are a business that prepares food, you probably shouldn't be getting into that business either. The only reason to try is to provide a needed benefit to your employees, and I don't see how a random employer would do better than all the other options out there.

My company sometimes lets us expense lunches or dinners, if they have us working in those slots. It's a small reimbursement (and sometimes doesn't cover the full cost thanks to today's inflation), but it provides the benefit to us employees cleanly and without mess or risk.
 
Sure, if it made economic sense. I'm not sure how it would though. All the ways I can think of it making sense for me, would involve it being part of the business already. Basically passing on the discount the business gets to you. If the business could / did negotiate a cost reduction at a store / service, in the hopes of the employees spending money there...sure.
 
The only way this would work is if every day it was a single option, five different meals over the course of a week, repeating the next week: Meatloaf Monday, Lasagna Tuesday, Chili Wednesday, Pot Roast Thursday, and Fried Catfish Friday.

Anything else would be too little food and too expensive to possibly be workable for employers. If they were charging you for it at cost, that would be worth it. A 6-person lasagna costs about $12 to make at home, for example, and about $30 if you buy it at a diner instead.
 
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