Should I provide lunches to staff? Lessons from Yvaya Farm’s Emmanuel Ampadu

For the startup, Pure & Just Fruits Co. Ltd. producer of the dried fruit brand Yvaya Farm, the answer to the question is yes, but the journey to “Yes” was four years in the making. And the outcome? Emmanuel, the Chief Operating Officer puts it this way:

“Two things I observed immediately after we started providing lunch was that there were minor complaints about wages. When it comes to production, we are doing more per day than before”

Why even provide lunch?

A hungry worker is a distracted worker. For many businesses, it helps attract and keep top employees happy by providing meals at the workplace. Emmanuel added that new hires in particular are greatly motivated when they hear their company provides lunch, as this is not the norm for food processing factories in Ghana, especially for a startup. More to the reasons for providing lunch, Emmanuel reflected: “We’ve had employees complain of headaches and even stomach ulcers”. And that was enough observation to help their leadership consider providing lunch for the staff. 

Not only that, the time it took for staff to decide what to eat; appoint someone to go out and buy food for all and the meal time itself robbed them of valuable time in production. This is a food processing factory where there must be personnel at the post every time. Meanwhile, to survive or have enough runway, they have tight schedules and targets they need not miss in production. Lastly, the decision to provide lunch coincided with the company’s decision to increase salaries

What else should you consider?

Emmanuel breaks down this question into three points:

1. Be sure to establish the fact that employees need lunch and not, for example, transportation allowance. Pure & Just have all of its workers living in proximity to the factory hence transportation allowance has not been an issue. Could it be that your workers care less about lunch but more about transportation allowance?. To confirm their decision, they conducted a poll, and interestingly there was a 100% Yes vote for lunch. The employees also had a choice with the catering service they were to hire. “They’ve even changed the catering company once after bad reviews on the meals served,” says Emmanuel.
2. Check the startup’s finances properly before you take this step. For Emmanuel, they could only afford this incentive after four years of operations. Perhaps it may take you less or more period to do so. Don’t be pressured into doing something you are not capable of financially.
3. What is the most efficient way to deliver this incentive? In his case, the most prudent solution was to have a catering business provide them with this service. Earlier, they considered giving out meal allowance but it was a poor solution. Considering they have to have around-the-clock production and monitoring of the factory, giving out the allowance still meant workers taking turns to go out for lunch. Which wasted a lot of time.

How are meals served?

Pure & Just have a WhatsApp group chat with their catering company (Esi’s Kitchen) where the menu for the day is posted by 5 am for staff to make their choices. By 10 am the food is delivered to them.

More on financing & cost

You can reduce the cost of lunch by cutting down certain excesses. For example, not using fancy plastic containers for packaging shito (a hot and spicy table condiment), not adding serviettes (paper napkins), and plastic spoons. Chances are that you have these items in the kitchen at your workplace. Work with your catering company to use simple packaging materials

Working with caterers

In Emmanuel’s experience, these are a few pointers to look at:

1. Always check the quality and safety of their meals and the quality of their service. Remember, if something goes wrong with the food, everyone in the company goes down too since the food will be eaten by all. And regularly give feedback on the food they supply. “I call them anytime something goes wrong. And since we are all in the food industry, we sometimes have meaningful discussions on how to improve food safety” he says.
2. Find out which other companies they service to gauge or confirm their credibility. 
3. Look out for a flexible payment structure. As some caterers demand cash and carry, others demand weekly or monthly bank deposits. 
4. The proximity of the catering service to your workplace is important as well. But if they are far and can deliver on time, with little to no extra cost on transportation

Any staff food favorites?

 Jollof, kokonte, banku & tilapia, oiled rice with stews, palm nut soup with rice / rice balls, and many more. 

The aftermath of providing lunch

One thing I observed immediately after we started providing lunch was that there were minor complaints about wages. When it comes to production, we are doing more per day than before. Back then we had to stop work to go and buy food.

What’s the company culture around lunch?

In Emmanuel’s view, they have not been able to practice the ideal situation they wanted due to constraints in the type of processes they run at their food factory. For them, the ideal would have been to have the whole team sit together for lunch, but that is not feasible for their work so they take turns to have lunch. A pair or a group of three from a particular unit in the factory leave their post to have lunch as others cover. Then the roles reverse.

However, they have temporary shutdowns every three months to get together to have meals and just have fun. Think about what type of culture you would like to build around lunch for your staff?

The culture around lunch is different from company to company and even more so when you cross over to other countries. Check out this story from France.

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