Office Pantry Dos and Don'ts

DO: Ensure you have your pantry essentials

No pantry is complete without the four essential pantry categories below to keep everyone fueled and focused throughout the day:

• Breakfast: Stock up on must-haves like coffee, milk, sweeteners, creamers, juice, bread, breakfast foods, protein drinks and bars. 
• Lunch Add-Ons: Include frozen foods, deli products, canned items, dry snacks, fresh produce, various sodas, water options and condiments. 
• Afternoon Snacks: Keep the energy high with sweets, candy, nuts, trail mix, jerky, energy drinks, kombucha, tea and cocoa.
• Supplies: Remember the office supplies, such as plates, utensils, cups, straws, napkins, serveware and cleaning products.

DO: Make data your BFF.

If you're not tracking your pantry spending and product consumption, how can you even begin to budget effectively? Use your consumption and spending reports to ensure you're not overstocking products that no one touches or missing out on employee favorites. With real-time visibility, you can tweak your program as you go, aligning pantry spending with employee preferences and company goals. 

Want to hear a secret? 

There is only one platform in the market that does this: the Crafty Platform. Get everything from your products, orders, spending and operational updates in one place. You can even use your historical data to spot pantry spending trends to better allocate for the future. 

DO: Rotate your products like a pro.

Implement the FEFO method: First expire, first out, to ensure that every last product in your stockroom is used. 

Put older products at the front and newer ones at the back. Regularly check your inventory and rotate items to keep things fresh and appealing. If anything looks slightly off or past its prime, pull it from the shelves to ensure your team always has access to the best snacks.

DO: Use smart merchandising to control your pantry spending.

Get creative with how you display office snacks, drinks and coffee. Merchandising can influence your employees' choices and, therefore, influence spending. Here is a preview of three key merchandising tips from our Budgeting Report to optimize your pantry experience:

🗄️ Choose Smart Storage: Opt for storage containers that aren't too large. The bigger your storage, the more you have to stock to make it look full. 

👀 Eye-Level Impact: Place cost-effective items at eye level to encourage consumption of budget-friendly options first. Reserve pricier items for lower shelves to control spending.

🕝 Time Your Stock: Consider timing when restocking. For example, keep protein drinks available in the morning when demand is high, but don't restock them in the afternoon to avoid overspending.

"Employees consume with their eyes first," says Hector Avelar, Strategic Account Director at Crafty. "There are easy ways to organize products to make them look more abundant without putting more items out, so you stay within budget."

Now, let's explore the don'ts! 

The Don'ts of Office Pantry Program Management 

DON'T: Waste money due to disorganization.

Ordering snacks from ten different vendors, with ten different invoices and no transparency into your program, is a recipe for inefficiency. Here are a couple of things to consider: 

• If all you're getting in terms of data is an invoice, then how do you even know if you got what you paid for? Simply seeing orders, proof of delivery and inventory in real-time can be a huge save because you know what you have and aren't ordering things you don't need. 
• Sure, you can search the internet to find a cheaper product, but how long did that take you? Your time is money, so the $0.30 you saved on Oreos doesn't even compare to the money you burned in time trying to find the savings. Plus, what if you order too much? We'll get to that next! 
• Lastly, every extra receipt or invoice means more time reconciling invoices at the end of the year. Again, time = money and your finance team doesn't love digging through thousands of receipts. Plus, if you don't have clear categorization, you can likely kiss any tax advantage goodbye! 

Consolidating your program across multiple locations is a game-changer. Spend less time chasing down your pantry information across various spreadsheets, invoices and vendors. You can keep an eye on all your products, orders and spending in one place and leave the heavy lifting to a reliable team (like ours!). Don't believe us? Top workplaces that made the switch to Crafty saved 35 hours/week.

DON'T: Stockpile snacks that never leave the shelf.

Sometimes, you think ordering in bulk will save money. We get it; we're all collectors at heart! But what if your team ends up hating those products? What happens when half of those granola bars expire before anyone touches them? You lose money!

The solution is to buy only what you need! Bulk is great, but the consumption has to be there to validate it. Again, the only way to know that is to have your data front and center. Track what your employees actually consume and work with a pantry partner who designs their inventory and service around those habits. A data-driven approach ensures you're stocking crowd favorites, not just filling up shelves with snacks destined for the trash.

DON'T: Let your workplace team drown in operational tasks.

Your workplace team has enough on their plates without needing to restock, order and organize snacks. It seems like a small task on the surface, but according to our research, those things can add up quickly. According to our data, on average, pantry management can take 25 hours/week, which adds up to 1,282 hours/year.

Outsourcing these tasks to a trusted partner frees them up to focus on higher-level initiatives that directly impact employee engagement and culture. Crafty can step in, managing everything from inventory to restocking so your team can focus on what matters most: building a stellar workplace experience.

DON'T: Ignore your equipment.

Office coffee machines, kegs, water dispensers and other equipment need a lot of love to run smoothly. This isn't like your at-home coffee machine that you only use once or twice daily. Your office kitchen equipment gets a lot of use, and since you spent a pretty penny on it, you want to ensure it's in working shape. 

Upkeep your equipment regularly, whether that's cleaning it, running a descaling cycle, changing the refills or even just a simple wipe down. Doing these tasks regularly can improve the quality of the output, prevent buildup, decrease the risk of clogs, and, of course, prolong the life of your machine!