The Ultimate COVID-19 Guide to Office Food & Beverage

Welcome to the ultimate COVID-19 guide to safe food & beverage at work. This guide outlines the changes you need to make to safely operate your food & beverage program.

Our team of workplace food & beverage experts have compiled internal and external research, strategies, and perspective on adapting your office’s food and beverage program.

We have helped a number of our clients adapt their food and beverage programs for the return-to-work, and we wanted to share the work we’re doing with the world in the hopes of two things

1. Preparation: providing workplace teams with strategies that can be employed in the near term, specifically related to food and beverage in the office
2. Education: helping workplace teams think about the long term changes ahead, specifically related to food and beverage within the employee experience

In this guide, we are starting with tips and tricks you can use in your office to ensure the safety of your food and beverage program.  At the bottom of this guide, you'll see articles that take an even deeper dive into various subjects.

20 ways to adapt your office's food & beverage program for COVID-19:

1. Any snacks in packaging made for multiple people should be replaced with single serve
2. Eliminate all reach-in containers
3. If you need to make gravity dispensers work, place bakery wrap next to the containers and provide clear signage directing employees to use the wrap as a protective layer between their hand and the knob or lid before serving themselves a snack
4. If you're serving bread or bagels, follow the same instructions for gravity dispensers by utilizing bakery wrap and clear signage
5. Order wrapped fruit, fruit cups, or packaged produce (like bags of baby carrots!)
6. Break apart the bananas each morning to ensure that individual employees do not need to break apart the bunch with their hands
7. Ensure every condiment or spread is also available in single serve packaging
8. Order single wrapped utensils or order an automatic utensil dispenser
9. Upgrading your current machines with touch free modules or outfitting your space with new touch free equipment altogether
10. Shift your catering programs to feature single serve meals and avoid serving anything family-style
11. Coordinated your delivery schedules and eating schedules to ensure you have space to maintain a safe 6 foot distance
12. Staggering lunch windows is an effective way to reduce density, and coupled with delivery zones, coordinated scheduling can become an extremely impactful way to orchestrate a safe and successful chow-down.
13. Create popup kitchenettes in your office to reduce movement and congestion in main kitchen and eating areas
14. Get certified (or leverage a certified vendor like Crafty!) with a standard cleaning and food handling procedure, such as ServSafe
15. Display your certifications in a visible place, so that employees can find comfort in knowing your onsite team is certified by an accredited institution
16. Re-educating and re-iterating to all staff the proper hand washing technique
17. Increased access to soap, one-use towels, hand sanitizer, gloves and facial masks
18. Increased sanitization of preparation facilities, delivery vehicles, and any materials needed for serving and delivery
19. Requiring that all employees with any symptoms stay home
20. Storage of personal meals brought from home should be limited to specific, sanitized areas that are easily accessible and located throughout the office

And a bonus:. implement order ahead technology to help employees avoid high touch surfaces like kiosks and POS systems and to enable virtual browsing.  If you're interested in learning more about tech like this, or how to enact any of the above, get in touch with our team here at Crafty.