3 Workplace Trends Shaping Your Office Breakroom [February 2025]

Employees are tightening their budgets in 2025, but not in the way you might expect. According to McKinsey, consumers are no longer making across-the-board cutbacks—instead, they’re making strategic trade-offs, deciding where to economize, maintain, or splurge. Let’s break it down:

• Economizing on certain food purchases: Consumers are cutting back on nonessential or premium-priced food items where they don’t see enough added value. Many are shopping at budget-friendly retailers like Aldi, which is expanding to meet demand, while major chains like Target and Walgreens are slashing grocery prices to stay competitive.
• Maintaining spending through trade-offs: Instead of cutting their overall food budget, consumers are shifting how they spend. More people are opting for home cooking—often using pre-cut or partially prepared ingredients to save time—rather than spending on pricier takeout.
• Splurging on food experiences: While people are making budget-conscious choices, they’re still willing to spend on items that feel like they add value. Fresh, high-quality food is still a priority, especially as interest in health and wellness grows. Branded food products are holding their ground, but only when they offer a clear advantage.

The tea: Your office pantry isn’t just a perk—it’s an extension of your compensation package if your employees actually utilize and can rely upon it. It's all about the perception. 

• If your employees have to fend for themselves or go outside of your pantry for their daily needs, then your pantry isn't saving them any money. 
• If your employees don't have to supply their own daily needs, then your pantry is saving them money.  

To ensure you stay ahead of the curve, here's our advice on how to apply these insights to your corporate food service program: 

• Employees are looking to you to provide healthy options: Employees don't want to compromise their health, so they may look to you to provide fresh, nutrient-dense snacks such as produce, yogurt, protein-rich snacks, etc. Also, remember that health means something different to different people, so even having vegan or gluten-free snacks can contribute to someone's health goals.
• Be strategic in how you merchandise pricier options: If you bring healthier and often pricier products into the mix, you can merchandise them in a way that controls consumption, such as putting them on lower shelves, not putting as many out at a time, or only putting them out at certain times. 
• Make small changes over time: You don't have to change every product on the shelf to keep up. Use your product spend and consumption data to see where the opportunities are. For example, if you notice protein bars are flying off the shelves, whereas chips are not getting consumed heavily, maybe this is your opportunity to test a product swap. Remove some chips from your lineup, invest in Quest Protein Chips for a quarter, and see how that performs.

If your pantry program offers strategic choices, it becomes an essential benefit, reinforcing your commitment to employee well-being while keeping your team fueled and focused.

The Non-GMO Project just dropped a game-changer: the Non-UPF Verified label, designed to help consumers identify foods without ultra-processed ingredients. 

• 85% of consumers looking to cut back on ultra-processed foods.
• Ultra-processed foods make up more than half of all calories consumed in the US.
• 72% of consumers prioritize natural, easy-to-understand ingredients.

Awareness of food processing has never been higher. The Non-GMO Project sees a direct link between GMOs and ultra-processed ingredients, making this new label a natural evolution of their mission for food transparency.

The tea: Even if this label isn't hitting food packaging just yet, it does signal one thing. Your employees are looking at labels and want to see products with recognizable and sustainable ingredients.

Across Crafty-powered pantries, we've seen steps to:

• Prioritize B Corp brands or vegan products to align with sustainability initiatives.
• Swap out products with red dye to ensure employee wellness. 
• Add in products that have functional benefits, such as kombucha. 

If you're working with anyone but Crafty, doing anything like this can be a major headache. Many of your other options in the office food delivery space rely on the PDF or Excel sheet method when it comes to product information. Not only does it put it on you to analyze, but that information is dated. So if you want to make a change, have fun spending HOURS, if not DAYS, Googling every single product to see what's up. 

In the Crafty Platform, all this can be pulled within a few simple clicks: 

• Use the B Corp filter to see all brands that meet the environmental standards. 
• Use the Vegan filter to see all vegan products. 
• Use the Organic filter to see all products that don't contain food dyes. 

Having that information in real-time and readily available is important to evolving your pantry to keep up with current consumer trends.