Office parks and other commercial real estate firms have long understood the competitive advantages of mutually beneficial partnerships with other businesses. These tend to be simple arrangements – offering a discount rate to a local gym for their tenants’ employees, for example – that act as no-risk sweeteners to close the deal on a new office lease. As commercial spaces adapt to the new realities of the post-COVID market, landlords and property managers are rethinking the role these budget-friendly amenities can play in winning new tenants and retaining existing ones. There’s no better place to start than with food.
As reported by Globe St. landlords in New York City are experimenting with exclusive partnerships with no-fee office food delivery services. Curious what Fooda has to say about this growing trend? Read on!
The Globe St. article largely focuses on efforts by New York-based commercial real estate firm Vornado Realty Trust, a company known within the industry for placing a heavy emphasis on sustainability, to offer no-cost food delivery for tenants at their facilities. By entering into an exclusive partnership with food-delivery service Sharebite, the real estate company hopes to encourage tenants to order from a select list of restaurant partners to group orders by location. It’s not difficult to see the appeal. Tenants get fee-free food delivery from local eateries, and restaurants get improved access to a captive audience of hungry office workers.
Free delivery is a good start, but it only scratches the surface of what’s possible with an office lunch program partnership. That’s where Fooda enters the story.
Unlike many companies in the office food delivery space, Fooda has always positioned itself as a compelling employee perk. The article notes that many of our key offerings – lunch and event catering, on-site restaurant pop-ups, cafeteria replacement, and standard office lunch delivery are exactly the type of indirect benefits that companies are increasingly turning to encourage “better employee engagement, happier workers, better recruiting and retention, higher productivity, and a health-and-wellness aspect that can lead to decreased insurance costs.”
These benefits are obvious for companies, particularly in an era where many offices are struggling to overcome the current work-from-home status quo. What’s less obvious, perhaps, is the value of providing these options at the landlord level. By offering a wealth of office food delivery and office lunch program options to tenants, property managers are solving a much larger problem… incentivizing workers to return onsite.
This type of partnership may be new to some startups in the office food delivery space, but it’s business as usual at Fooda. We’ve worked with building managers and office parks at a national level, helping to reduce (or even eliminate) the costs of office catering and lunch programs in locations that have traditionally been served by on-site cafeterias. Our clients have experienced these benefits for years, providing local food options directly to their workers. As a job perk, the food is hard to beat. Interested in bringing Fooda to your building space? Let’s Talk!
