The Strategic Guide to Create a High-Impact Office Fruit Program

1. Start with Seasonal Fruit

A fruit program that never changes loses its impact fast. When the same bananas, apples, and oranges show up every week, employees stop noticing and eventually stop grabbing. What starts as a perk quickly becomes background noise, leading to higher waste and lower engagement.

“The biggest thing is stagnation,” said Erik Muller, President of The FruitGuys. “Offering the same bananas and apples is okay for one or two or three or four weeks, but then I think the employees are going to be demanding something different.”

The solution? Build your fruit program around what’s in season. Seasonal fruit is harvested at its peak, which means it tastes better, holds up longer, and feels more exciting. It also creates a natural rhythm for your pantry program by offering variety without the need to constantly reinvent. Employees start to look forward to what's coming next, whether it’s juicy cherries in the spring or crisp pears in the fall.

We asked Miguel Robles, produce buyer at The FruitGuys, to share his top seasonal picks. Here’s what he recommends:

• Fall: Bosc pears, Sweetie apples, figs, persimmons, pomegranates, Moon Drop™ grapes
• Winter: Cara Cara oranges, blood oranges, kumquats
• Spring: Strawberries, blueberries, Ojai Pixie tangerines, California cherries
  Summer: Pluots, peaches, nectarines, Angelcot apricots

By aligning your office fruit program with the seasons, you’re creating a fresh, engaging experience that evolves throughout the year. “Angelcot apricots are sweet, juicy, and have hints of vanilla," says Miguel. "Offices love them when they’re in season.”

2. Source Fruit Locally Whenever Possible

While seasonality brings flavor and excitement, local sourcing is what delivers peak quality. When fruit is grown closer to where it’s consumed, it doesn’t have to be picked early for long-distance shipping. That means it arrives with better texture, better ripeness, and stronger nutrient retention. For workplace teams, that translates to higher satisfaction and less waste.

“We have an internal goal of keeping the fruit in our control for as much time as possible to ensure the highest quality,” said Erik Muller, President of The FruitGuys. “We operate 11 different facilities around the country. That allows us to source regionally and deliver more quickly, so the fruit spends less time in transit and arrives fresher.”

Local sourcing is also a smart sustainability strategy. Transporting produce across long distances requires refrigerated trucks, extended cold storage, and more packaging. When you shorten that supply chain, you reduce emissions, fuel use, and food waste. Your office snack program becomes cleaner and greener by design.

As Miguel Robles explained, “It doesn’t take as many resources to move the product around. If you live in New York, it takes a lot more to get you an orange from Mexico than a local, in-season apple.”

There’s also a human impact. Sourcing locally helps support small, independent farms, many of which are increasingly vulnerable in today’s food system. The FruitGuys works with more than 70 farms across the country and often features lesser-known varietals not available through national distributors. This brings employees not just fruit, but a story. That kind of connection builds meaning.

Local sourcing benefits at a glance:

• Better quality from field to fridge with less time in transit
• Lower environmental impact from reduced food miles and refrigeration
• Support for local farms, often bringing unique or heirloom varieties
• A values-driven story that employees can connect with and feel good about

3. Deliver Consistently to Build Trust

Even the best fruit program will fall flat if it’s unreliable. Employees need to know that fresh, high-quality options will be there when they need them. Consistency builds trust. And trust builds habits.

When fruit is delivered on time, in good condition, and with a dependable mix of options, it becomes something people count on as part of their workday. As Erik put it, “Consistency, frequency, and variety. That’s the trio that keeps people coming back.”

Some companies even see employees arriving early on delivery days just to grab their favorites. Erik shared that one of The FruitGuys' clients even schedules job interviews on those days because the office energy is so noticeably elevated. When fruit becomes part of your team’s weekly rhythm, it creates a small moment of connection that people look forward to.

To build that kind of trust, focus on the following:

• Deliver regularly. Start with once a week. For larger offices, two to three deliveries per week can help reduce waste and meet higher demand.
• Match delivery to peak office days. Tuesdays are often the most consistent in-office day. Timing deliveries accordingly helps ensure fruit is enjoyed at its best.
• Protect freshness. Work with a partner that can deliver close to when the fruit will actually be eaten. The shorter the time between packing and snacking, the better the experience.
• Keep the mix balanced. Avoid big swings in selection. A steady base of familiar favorites with seasonal additions keeps it fresh without feeling unpredictable.

4. Focus on Quality (Not Just Appearance)

In an office setting, fruit that looks perfect but tastes like nothing or spoils within a day misses the mark. It might catch someone’s eye, but it won’t keep them coming back. Quality fruit is about more than surface-level shine. It’s about taste, texture, and how well it holds up in your pantry.

That’s why The FruitGuys goes beyond appearance in its quality control process. Every piece is inspected by hand and evaluated based on what actually matters in the workplace:

• Sweetness: Measured using refractometers to ensure fruit is harvested at peak flavor
• Ripeness and texture: Checked with penetrometers to avoid under- or over-ripeness
• Pulp temperature: Especially important for fruits like bananas, where heat accelerates spoilage
• Structural integrity: Soft spots, deep bruising, or poor firmness mean the fruit won’t last

Minor cosmetic blemishes are not a dealbreaker. As Miguel Robles explained, The FruitGuys often refers to them as “fruit beauty marks” because some of the best-tasting fruit doesn’t look perfectly uniform. But anything that won’t hold up or doesn’t meet flavor standards is removed. As Miguel said, “If it doesn’t taste great or last in your break room, it’s out. No exceptions.”

5. Store and Display with Care

Storage matters at every step. From the moment fruit is harvested to the second someone picks it up in your breakroom, even the best selection can fall short if it’s not handled with care throughout the journey.

This is why The FruitGuys follows a just-in-time model. Fruit is sourced, inspected, and delivered with minimal delay to ensure it arrives fresh. “We don’t have huge facilities, so we can’t store much product,” Erik explained. “That works in our favor because it comes in and goes right back out again.” The result is better quality and less waste because fruit that sits too long can quickly go soft, spoil, or lose nutritional value.

Once it reaches your workplace, proper handling is just as critical. Poor storage doesn’t just shorten shelf life, but it also leads to unappetizing displays and unnecessary budget drain. A few spoiled pieces on the counter can make the whole program feel neglected.

Here’s how to keep fruit fresh, inviting, and easy to enjoy:

• Keep bananas at room temperature and away from apples or avocados, which emit ripening gases
• Store berries unwashed in the fridge using ventilated containers to slow spoilage
• Let the stone fruit ripen on the counter, then refrigerate once soft to the touch
• Use open baskets or wood crates for airflow and visual appeal
• Rotate displays daily to ensure older fruit gets picked first

6. Connect with Storytelling

In today’s workplace, spontaneous connections are harder to come by. With hybrid schedules, meeting fatigue, and nonstop change, those informal moments that once happened at someone’s desk or in the hallway are now rare. But they’re still essential. When employees engage casually and authentically, it builds trust, strengthens culture, and improves how teams work together.

According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 report, employee engagement has dropped to its lowest level since the pandemic. Manager engagement fell sharply, individual contributors feel increasingly disconnected, and companies are losing billions in productivity. In that context, even small moments of connection matter more than ever.

“A fruit program can break down silos," says Erik. "We’ve seen CEOs and admins swap flavor notes over a piece of fruit.” When your team learns where the fruit was grown, what variety it is, or why it was chosen, it adds meaning. It turns an everyday snack into something employees notice and talk about. In those small, unplanned exchanges, people connect outside their roles. They pause, they share, and they engage with each other in a way that feels authentic and personal.

How to bring storytelling into your fruit program:

• Posting the contents of its mixes every week, so that customers can check which varieties are in their box and see farms we're celebrating
• Offering information like farm stories, seasonal variety fun facts, and tasting notes—sometimes with printed notes in the boxes and always on the searchable blog
• Share farm names so employees can connect with the people behind the produce
• Highlight growing regions to show how geography impacts flavor
• Call out varietal origins so your team can know they are getting something special
• Feature tasting notes to invite curiosity and conversation in Slack or in person
• Use fruit to celebrate cultural moments to enjoy the traditions of your employees

7. Use Data to Streamline Your Program

The smartest fruit programs don’t rely on guesswork. They use data to stay aligned with what employees actually consume and what the business needs to see in return. Tracking usage, waste, and trends over time helps you streamline your offering, minimize costs, and maximize impact.

The Crafty Platform helps workplaces turn pantry activity into actionable insight within clicks. You can see what’s being consumed in real time, which fruit is performing best, and automate ordering to avoid over-ordering, adapt quickly, and minimize waste. 

This data also unlocks value beyond the breakroom. Many workplaces use fruit consumption reports to support wellness program advantages and negotiate better rates with insurance providers as part of their preventative health strategy. As Erik put it, “Fruit is one of the lowest-cost, highest-impact wellness investments you can make.”

Tools that help you optimize your office fruit program:

• Centralized order tracking so you always know what’s been ordered, what’s in transit, and what’s arriving next
• Fruit consumption insights that show which items are performing well and which need to be rotated out
• Automated inventory monitoring to avoid over- or under-ordering and keep stock levels aligned with real demand
• Category-level reporting to support internal business cases or take advantage of wellness and insurance incentives
• Transparent service visibility with photo proof of deliveries and pantry setups, so you can see exactly how fruit displays look across your locations

Conclusion

A strong office fruit program isn’t just about having something healthy on the counter. It’s about building a system that evolves with your team, aligns with your goals, and actually gets used. When you bring in-season fruit, source thoughtfully, prioritize quality, and use data to guide your decisions, the results go beyond wellness. You build culture, reduce waste, and create everyday moments that make the workplace feel a little more human.

With partners like The FruitGuys and a platform like Crafty behind your pantry, you have the tools to make it easy, impactful, and built to last.