The Cost-Savings Benefits of Outsourcing Your Office Pantry Service

Every dollar matters in business. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in or who you serve; respecting the value of every dollar is critical to your success. That mantra applies across the board, from product research and development down to your office pantry service and beyond. 

In the quest to save dollars on in-house amenities like office pantry services, some businesses are compelled to toss aside the program entirely. But that would be missing the bigger picture. This is a valuable service to provide to your people, and when done right—with help from the expert InReach team—it can be delivered without taking a big bite out of your bottom line. Get in touch with us today to learn more. 

What Is an Office Pantry Service?

You can think of an office pantry as an elevated breakroom. Far more than just a few chairs, a table, and a fridge, a modern office pantry is stocked full of snacks and beverages and offers a comfortable and relaxing place to spend time. Office pantries have become extremely popular and are now considered excellent amenities to boost employee satisfaction. In fact, research shows that 88% of employees consider it important for their employer to provide snacks.

It’s common for businesses to start out by managing their own office pantry, although this can come with a number of surprising costs. Soon enough, many organizations realize that managing a pantry alone is unsustainable (and expensive), and they choose to outsource the responsibility as a result.

The Hidden Costs of Managing an Office Pantry

When you first get started with your office pantry, it’s easy enough to think that you’ll just be able to manage it on your own without any trouble. After all, how hard could it be? Purchasing some snacks and beverages to put out in a shared space might seem pretty simple, but the complexities and costs start to make themselves clear quite quickly. 

• Labor costs: Any time spent managing your office pantry is time that is not being spent on other core functions of the business. Whether this time is invested by yourself, someone else on the team, or a variety of people, the result is the same: labor costs are being directed toward office pantry management instead of other business activities. 
• Wasted inventory: There is always going to be some percentage of waste involved in a food service project, but that waste is going to go up significantly when you don’t have experience in this space. It’s hard to keep an office pantry properly full but not be particularly wasteful at the same time. If you manage the pantry in-house, expect waste to be significant. 
• Poor buying power: On your own, you won’t have much buying power at all unless you happen to run a particularly large office building. Without scale, you aren’t going to get great terms on your purchases, and you’ll be paying more for snacks and drinks than you would as part of a larger organization. 

Partnering Turns It All Around

By partnering on this work with the experienced InReach team, you can quickly turn everything around. For starters, none of your people will be spending their valuable time actively managing the pantry, so those labor costs can be redirected back into the core functions of the business. That alone will be a big step in the right direction. 

With us, you’ll also be able to benefit from the InReach Alliance Network—a buying group powered by Sodexo. Those high unit prices you might have been paying when shopping on your own will come down in a hurry once you have our network on your side. Suddenly, items that you thought were outside of your budget restrictions could be attainable, and you’ll enjoy other benefits, such as earning valuable rewards on purchases. 

There is also the improved efficiency of your pantry that can’t be overlooked. Since your purchases will be guided by an expert on the InReach team, waste will be significantly reduced, and you will no longer be spending a lot of money on food that only ends up at the bottom of a trash can. 

Other Financial Ramifications

Some of the financial benefits of outsourcing your office pantry service, like cutting down on waste, are pretty easy to measure. Others, however, aren’t as easy to tag with a number, but they are no less important. 

For instance, a quality office pantry program is likely to make your people more productive, effectively giving you a better return on your labor dollars. If people can get convenient, nutritious snacks within a few steps of their desks, they can refuel and get back to work quickly. That’s a big boost for productivity, even if it is a bit tricky to quantify. 

You can also point to improved employee retention as something that benefits you financially over time. When employees are happy with where they work and satisfied with amenities like a quality office pantry, they will be less inclined to look around for opportunities in other places. That means you benefit from not having to keep hiring new people regularly, and the skills and knowledge of your existing teams only grow as time passes.

Tailoring Your Pantry Perfectly

Every office is unique. Your office is the only one in the world with the exact mix of people that you have in place, and as a result, you need a customized pantry program to serve those people successfully. 

Partnering with us on your pantry services can help you to better tailor the way that program works to align with your people and their values. For example, do the people in your building and the business as a whole value sustainability? Knowing that is a core value for the company, you can work with InReach as your office pantry partner to stock the space with products that are in alignment with your vision. That could mean organic snacks, eco-friendly packaging, locally sourced items, and more. 

Sustainability is just one example of how something that is important in your office can be brought to life in the pantry. Other useful office pantry ideas include catering to many different cuisine preferences and abiding by dietary restrictions.

Start Saving Today With InReach

There is no reason to wait to start enjoying valuable savings for your business. We’d hate to see you give up on the idea of a small office pantry just because it feels too expensive at the moment. With InReach, you can leverage the many advantages we’ve discussed above to not only save money but also provide your people with an outstanding amenity that will upgrade their daily experience in your building. Connect with us today to get started!