Best Gluten-Free Snacks
August 18, 2021
If you’ve ever tried to add “office snacks” to a company budget, you’ll know it’s surprisingly difficult to decide what number to put against it.
Budget too little and the snack cupboard can be empty halfway through the week. Buy too much and you’re left with products nobody particularly wants. Then there are different dietary requirements, changing office attendance and the time somebody has to spend ordering and restocking everything.
So, how much should a UK business actually budget for office snacks?
The answer isn’t a universal £ amount per employee. There is no reliable UK benchmark that every business should follow. A more useful office snack budget is based on how many people are actually in your workplace, how many snacks you want to provide, how often you need them and what type of choice you want to offer.
Once you know those things, the numbers become much easier to work out.
Rather than starting with an arbitrary amount of money, start with how many snacks you actually need.
A simple calculation is:
Average number of people in the office × snacks per person × number of days you’re providing them = estimated number of snacks required
For example, imagine you have 40 employees but, because of hybrid working, only around 20 are typically in the office on a normal day.
If you want to make one snack per person available across three office days each week:
20 employees × 1 snack × 3 days = 60 snacks per week
You now have something useful to budget around.
If you instead calculated your requirements using all 40 employees across five days, you’d budget for 200 snacks despite your actual requirement being much lower.
That’s why average office attendance can be far more useful than total company headcount when setting a workplace snack budget.
You can then compare the cost of supplying the quantity you actually need through supermarket shopping, bulk purchasing, vending or a delivered office snack service.
Headcount is only the beginning.
The amount a business should spend on office snacks will depend on several factors.
Office attendance: A hybrid workplace may need considerably fewer snacks than an office where almost everyone attends five days a week.
Frequency: Are snacks available every working day, once a week or mainly for meetings, busy periods and team occasions?
Quantity: One snack per employee is very different from maintaining a fully stocked kitchen throughout the day.
Variety: A basic supply of a few favourites will have a different cost from a frequently changing mix of sweet, savoury and other snack options.
Dietary requirements: Your workplace may need vegan, gluten-free or other suitable alternatives so more employees have something they can choose.
Quality: The cheapest possible multipack and a carefully selected variety of individually packed snacks aren’t necessarily comparable products.
Delivery: How your snacks reach the workplace also matters. Buying them yourself may avoid a delivery charge, but someone still needs to shop for, transport and replenish them.
That last point is particularly easy to overlook.
There’s the amount you spend on snacks.
Then there’s the amount it costs your business to manage the snacks.
Someone has to notice they’re running low. Someone has to decide what to buy. Someone may need to check dietary requirements, place an order, go shopping, unpack everything and then do it all again when the popular choices disappear.
It might only take a little time on each occasion, but repeated supermarket runs and weekly replenishment create an administrative cost that won’t necessarily appear under “office snacks” in your accounts.
There’s also waste to consider.
Buying the cheapest product isn’t particularly economical if nobody wants it. Likewise, buying enormous quantities simply because the unit price is lower can be a false economy if products are left sitting in the cupboard.
So rather than asking only:
“What’s the cheapest way to buy office snacks?”
It can be more useful to ask:
“What’s the simplest way to provide the right number and variety of snacks for our team?”
That small change in thinking can lead to a much better budget.
Hybrid working makes this especially important.
If 100 people work for your organisation but only 30-40 normally attend the workplace on any given day, purchasing as though all 100 are present could create unnecessary cost and waste.
Look at your busiest days. Perhaps Tuesday to Thursday are busy while Monday and Friday are noticeably quieter. You don’t necessarily need the same amount of stock available every day.
If you don’t already know your team’s consumption, run a simple four-week test.
Record how many snacks you start with, roughly how many employees attend, when you need to replenish them and which types are consistently left behind.
After four weeks, you’ll have something much more valuable than an internet estimate:
your own workplace data.
You can then adjust your office snack budget around how your employees actually use the service.
Price matters, particularly when you’re buying regularly.
But cheap and good value aren’t always the same thing.
Imagine buying 100 packets of the same inexpensive snack because you’ve found an excellent bulk price. The first few disappear quickly. Then interest drops, and 35 packets remain untouched.
Compare that with buying a smaller, more varied selection that actually gets eaten.
The second option could cost more per individual packet while representing better overall value.
This is why variety deserves a place in your budget.
A workplace selection might include a changing balance of popcorn, savoury snacks, roasted chickpeas, lentil-based snacks, fruit-based options, snack bars, crisps and the occasional sweet treat rather than relying on one type of product.
You don’t need dozens of choices. You need enough variety to make the selection useful to the people you’re buying it for.
The NHS Eatwell Guide also recommends eating a variety of foods and explains that foods high in fat, salt and sugar should generally be consumed less often and in smaller amounts as part of an overall balanced diet.
One of the easiest ways to waste part of your office snack budget is to buy plenty of food that some employees can’t choose from.
That’s why dietary requirements should be considered before you order.
Depending on your team, this could mean including vegan or gluten-free choices alongside your wider snack selection.
You don’t necessarily need to create an enormous separate supply for every preference. Start by asking your employees what they actually require and use that information when choosing the mix.
It is also important not to treat terms such as vegan, gluten-free and allergen-free as though they mean the same thing.
If an employee has an allergy, intolerance or medical dietary requirement, always check current product packaging and manufacturer allergen information rather than relying solely on the general category of the snack.
Office snacks shouldn’t be treated as a replacement for meaningful employee wellbeing initiatives, a positive workplace culture or good working practices. They can, however, form one small part of the overall employee experience.
Providing convenient refreshments gives employees access to something to eat during the working day without necessarily having to leave the workplace. Offering a varied selection can also make it easier to include different preferences and dietary requirements.
The key is to view office snacks as one practical workplace benefit within a much broader approach to employee wellbeing, rather than a wellbeing strategy in themselves.
Before increasing your snack budget, look at whether you can make the existing budget work harder.
Pay attention to what disappears first.
If savoury snacks vanish quickly but certain bars are repeatedly left behind, change the balance of your next order.
You can also reduce unnecessary spending by:
The aim isn’t to ration every packet.
It’s to find the point where employees have a useful choice without the business continually paying for food nobody eats.
For some businesses, buying snacks themselves works perfectly well.
If you have a very small team and only want occasional refreshments, adding a few items to an existing shop may be all you need.
But the equation changes as your requirements grow.
More employees can mean more products, more frequent replenishment, more dietary considerations and more time spent managing everything.
That’s where office snack delivery starts to become attractive.
Rather than focusing exclusively on whether each individual packet can be purchased a few pence cheaper elsewhere, consider what you’re getting for the total spend.
How much time does somebody currently spend finding snacks? How often are they being reordered? Are you providing enough variety? Can different dietary requirements be accommodated? How much gets wasted? And does someone have to remember to do all of this again next week?
For many workplaces, convenience has a value too.
This is exactly the sort of problem we created Snack Packs to make easier.
Instead of somebody in your business repeatedly sourcing different products and trying to keep the snack cupboard interesting, Snack Packs provides office snack boxes delivered directly to your workplace.
Businesses can choose from office snack options including vegan and gluten-free selections, with different ways to order depending on what works for the workplace.
The idea isn’t that every business should spend more on snacks.
Quite the opposite.
It’s about making whatever budget you decide on easier to manage.
For some businesses, that may mean a regular office snack subscription. For others, a one-off box for a team occasion, meeting, busy period or workplace treat may make more sense.
You can explore our office snack boxes and choose an option that suits your team rather than trying to fit your workplace around an arbitrary industry budget.
This is an area where businesses should be careful about generalisations.
HMRC has specific rules covering meals and food provided to employees. Certain arrangements may qualify for exemptions when the relevant conditions are met, but that doesn’t mean every workplace food or snack arrangement automatically receives the same tax treatment.
If tax treatment is important to your decision, check the current GOV.UK guidance on meals for employees or speak to your accountant about your particular circumstances rather than assuming office snacks automatically qualify as a “trivial benefit”.
How much should a small business budget for office snacks?
There is no standard amount. Start with the average number of people actually attending the workplace, decide how many snacks you want available per person and how frequently you’ll provide them, then calculate the quantity required. Small businesses can start conservatively and adjust the budget after monitoring actual consumption.
How many snacks should you provide per employee?
There’s no universal number because every workplace is different. One snack per employee per office day can be a useful calculation starting point, rather than a recommended allowance. Monitor how quickly snacks are consumed and increase or decrease the quantity based on your team’s actual behaviour.
Is buying office snacks in bulk cheaper?
Bulk buying can reduce the cost per item, but a lower unit price doesn’t necessarily mean a lower overall cost. If buying large quantities creates waste or leaves you with unpopular products, a smaller and more varied order may offer better value.
How often should office snacks be restocked?
It depends on team size, attendance and consumption. Rather than automatically restocking daily or weekly, monitor how quickly your existing supply is used and establish a schedule around genuine demand.
How should hybrid businesses budget for workplace snacks?
Use average daily attendance rather than total company headcount. If 60 people work for the business but only 25 normally attend the office, calculate your initial snack requirement around those 25 and adjust for particularly busy or quiet days.
Are office snack boxes worth it for businesses?
They can make sense when convenience, variety and reduced administration matter to your business. A delivered snack box removes some of the work involved in repeatedly sourcing and purchasing individual products. Whether it represents good value depends on your team size, requirements and how you currently manage workplace refreshments.
There isn’t a magic number, and that’s probably the most useful answer.
A business with ten employees shouldn’t copy the budget of a 100-person office. A hybrid company shouldn’t automatically budget for every employee being present five days a week. And neither should you assume that buying the cheapest snacks possible will deliver the best value.
Instead:
Work out how many people are actually in your workplace.
Estimate how many snacks you want to provide.
Decide how frequently you want them available.
Account for dietary requirements and variety.
Monitor what actually gets eaten.
Then build your budget around those numbers.
And remember that the cost of office snacks isn’t only the price of what’s inside the cupboard. There’s also the time involved in choosing, buying, carrying, ordering and replenishing them.
If you’d rather take some of that work off your team’s plate, Snack Packs can deliver a varied selection of individually packed snacks directly to your workplace, making office snacking simpler without making your budget more complicated.
