Fare Labor Practices
Picture the workday starting with the smell of baking rye bread topped with rosemary from an organic garden. Or the taste of a made-to-order protein shake with fresh raspberries. Or a breakfast of soy ham with a cholesterol-free egg substitute.
Recognize the company cafeteria?
These offerings at various Southern California workplaces reflect an acknowledgment by corporations that eating right is key to well-being--along with a business payoff of happier employees, reduced health-care costs and fewer sick days for conditions linked to diet such as diabetes, heart disease and high cholesterol. The trend began more than a decade ago at a few employee-oriented businesses but has expanded widely in recent years.
“My sense of why is that there’s an old feeling, maybe a melancholy feeling of companies sort of taking care of their employees,” said Susan Spector, a nutritionist at New York University. “Food is a metaphor for taking care of people. . . . Little perks mean more to some people than getting a raise. In terms of retention, we look at what makes employees more loyal.”
For instance, at a New York City investment firm where Spector works as a consultant, the company has two dining rooms. One cafe offers standard fare and prices; the other offers healthy, mostly vegetarian meals--for free. The same company provides a pantry on each office floor that is stocked with items including fresh fruit, fat-free yogurt and bottled water--also free.
At Xerox Corp., a team of health experts, including a food service advisor, meets to figure out how to encourage employees nationwide to “make healthy choices in general,” said Joseph DiPassio, the company’s liaison with Aramark, a contract food services provider. He gets involved on a minute level, suggesting menu revisions such as using skim milk for the Alfredo sauce.
“By eating healthy, by making healthy choices, you lead a happy, healthier, more productive life,” DiPassio said. “Some studies have shown that a healthier employee is a more productive employee. They get hurt less. They’re out of work less. . . . If you’re more fit, and eating more correctly, it’s better for everyone.”
That attitude works for Kathleen Hayes, a computer specialist for Xerox in El Segundo. Hayes, who eats in the company cafeteria about four days a week, tries to stick to vegetarian meals, with fish or chicken thrown in occasionally.
“It’s great. I love it,” Hayes said of the cafeteria’s selections. “I’m really happy. I very rarely cook at home now. I can get a really nice meal here.” The cafeteria, which offers rotisserie turkey and water-packed tuna, is so good that Hayes’ sister often drops by to eat, knowing she can get a low-fat meal.
Fitness-conscious employees or job candidates will note how a company feeds its work force, said James Sukenik, president of the Baker Group, a corporate consulting firm in Grand Rapids, Mich.
“Consider, if you will, a person that is looking beyond the wages but truly at the global experience of the job,” Sukenik said. “How do they evaluate their work environment? It’s: ‘Do they have a window?’ . . . and ‘Where do they go 1/8to eat 3/8?’--the lonely room that has the vending machine in it and sit under the florescent lights, or is it the 1/8company’s fresh 3/8 marketplace?”
Meanwhile, food service contractors retained by companies are trying to keep up with restaurants that cook made-to-order fare with fresh ingredients. And competition is fierce. According to the National Restaurant Assn., consumers in 2010 are expected to spend more than 53% of every food dollar on meals, snacks and beverages prepared outside of the home. That figure is up from 25% in 1955 and 44% in 1999.
Companies also are recognizing that the two-income family means parents have less time to cook or to plan well-balanced meals.
At USAA financial services company in San Antonio, where the work force is 63% female, the food service contractor tries to save employees a trip to the grocery store and ATM. In the company’s main cafeteria, for example, employees on their way home can stop at the fruit and vegetable stand, pick up a quart of milk or order a healthy dinner to go. The costs can be automatically deducted from the shopper’s paycheck with a swipe of an identification badge.
“You don’t have to decide when you go home, ‘Is it going to be Wendy’s or McDonald’s or Burger King?’ ” said Tom Honeycutt, a USAA spokesman.
Such takeout food at work means that Sylvia Toste-Rodgers doesn’t have to worry about cooking after her one-hour commute from her office in Pasadena to her home in Rancho Cucamonga. With her husband in mind, Toste-Rodgers, a computer technician at Kaiser Permanente, watches the to-go menu for healthy entrees such as broiled salmon with two side dishes for $4.
She also reads the cafeteria’s postings that list calories and fat grams for some offerings as well as color-coded stickers to identify good-for-you foods such as baked shark, sushi or sugar-free applesauce.
“It really makes me feel good as an individual that they do that for us,” said Toste-Rodgers, who also is a marathon runner. “They don’t have to. The cafeteria could have been like hospital food.”
At Amgen Inc., a biotechnology company in Thousand Oaks, the cafeteria’s takeout menu includes well-balanced family dinners for $3.95 to $5.25. Choices include items such as chicken Marsala with cream sauce on the side, grilled vegetables and orzo (a rice-shaped pasta). Nothing on the menu that fits your family’s diet? Just talk to the chef.
“The Atkins 1/8high-protein 3/8 diet is popular and we’re tailoring our menu toward that,” said Jeff Lougee, area general manager for Amgen’s contractor, Sodexho Marriott Services. “If someone says, ‘I’m a vegan or lacto ovo,’ we can whip something up.”
Paul Devlin, general manager of Networks Cafe in Santa Monica, tends to get a young, hip, watch-what-they-eat crowd from the companies he serves, including MTV. His specialties include hot soba noodles in a light broth, udon noodle salad, tofu pizza and grilled vegetables over polenta (ground corn meal). He and the chef, who also is from Sodexho Marriott, handpick the seasonings from their on-site herb garden.
On some days, Stefania Campagna, an MTV office manager, heads straight for the cafe’s power-shake bar, which features soy milk and protein powder. She tries to avoid the afternoon espresso-and-crash cycle by ordering a raspberry protein shake instead.
“It’s really nice to know you’re doing something healthy for your body instead of drinking caffeine and dirty water,” Campagna said. “You’re like, ‘I’m alive and well, and I have all this energy and can keep going.’
“It’s a perk to have healthy food to choose from as opposed to having a runner go to McDonald’s.”
Other companies turn to nutritionists to keep employees on track.
“We have to do everything we can to take care of people,” said Sharon F. Johnson, a nutritionist who manages an Aramark cafeteria for American Honda Motor Co. in Torrance. “This is home away from home, and people go crazy over their food.”
Johnson isn’t shy about pushing good selections such as saffron rice, brown rice and soy burgers.
“I’ll go up to people in the cafe and say, ‘Why are you eating all that?’ ‘Are you drinking carrot juice?’ They say, ‘I just want a juicy burger.’ That’s gonna kill you.
“If I had my choice, we would never sell a hamburger ever.”
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Renee Tawa can be reached at renee.tawa@latimes.com.
