ZeroCater Introduces Cloud Cafe, A Digital Cafeteria Revolutionizing How Employees Eat
ZeroCater, one of North America’s largest corporate catering and snacks platforms, announces today the national rollout of Cloud Cafe, a digital app-based cafeteria for companies and groups of any size. Cloud Cafe enables employees to choose and pay for their own daily meals from thousands of individually packaged menu items provided by top-rated caterers and restaurants. Cloud Cafe is powered by ZeroCater’s proprietary food recommendation engine FoodIQ, and curates a weekly rotation of cuisines and meal offerings that match the unique tastes and preferences of every employee. Built for the post-COVID workplace, Cloud Cafe offers companies unmatched flexibility to pay for all, some, or none of their employees’ daily meals.
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In a post-COVID world, companies are offering their employees more flexibility than ever before when it comes to how and where they work. The corporate office is undergoing a transformation to a new hybrid model; now employees can work from home part of the week while still having the flexibility to come into the office when needed, whether it is to meet a new team member or brainstorm with a manager over lunch. Companies are realizing that feeding their teams is paramount as they look for new ways to build culture and foster creativity while keeping employees safe as they return to the office.
“A recent survey of our customers showed that their top concerns when it comes to their teams working from home are lower employee engagement and decreased productivity,” said Ali Sabeti, CEO of ZeroCater. “We’re seeing companies across all industries prioritizing feeding their teams as a new way to keep employees engaged, productive, and safe on the days they decide to come into the office.”
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As hybrid workforces become more prevalent, companies of all sizes are struggling to manage their food programs. Fluctuating in-office employee headcounts and shrinking food budgets are making legacy solutions like on-premise cafeterias run by companies such as Aramark, Compass Group, and Sodexo, along with traditional on-site caterers, obsolete. “Companies are hesitant to spend millions of dollars to build out a corporate cafeteria when they don’t know how many of their employees will be in the office next week. The economics and menu variety of an on-site cafeteria or caterer just will not work in the post-COVID world,” said Sabeti.
Some companies have turned to third-party B2C food delivery services like DoorDash and Uber Eats for their office catering needs, but are now finding these solutions to be too expensive and lacking in the consistency and quality that an office feeding a group of 10 or more employees needs. “Companies without access to cafeterias and traditional caterers, like smaller offices or warehouses, may currently be using B2C food delivery services, but they quickly realize that delivery consistency, food quality, and cost become issues once the group gets larger than 10 people. That’s where Cloud Cafe comes into play,” said Sabeti.
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