Food & Beverage Budget Calculator: A Guide for Office Managers

October 16, 2024. Budgeting for office snacks and drinks can feel like a guessing game. How much should you spend on coffee? Are catered lunches worth it? This guide takes the guesswork out of creating a food and beverage program that satisfies your employees (and your boss and finance team). Get clear cost breakdowns, actionable insights, and vendor recommendations to build a plan that works.

☝️ First Thing’s First: Factors to Consider

Sometimes the best way to start is by taking a step back. Before putting pen to paper on the numbers, think about what having these food or beverages will mean to your company and your employees. Are they simply a perk, or do they contribute to a larger goal? Here are the questions worth asking yourself.

1. How important is employee experience to your company?
   
   If you want to attract and retain top talent, a well-stocked fridge and catered lunches can go a long way. Especially in a competitive job market, where companies are vying for unique talent by enhancing their benefits packages, you’ll need to consider a higher food and beverage budget to keep up. Research shows that over 40% of employees would take a pay cut in exchange for their company’s investment in their health and well-being.
   
2. How much value does the company place on in-person collaboration?
   
   This one comes down to your return-to-office policy. Are you trying to push a flexible, hybrid schedule, getting people back at their desks three or four times a week? Or have one day in mind you’d like for everyone to be together?
   
   If the team is encouraged to come into the office frequently, catered lunches and a rainbow array of snacks have been found to be a highly effective means of getting people to show up, keeping their energy levels high, and getting them to trust one another and form real community. Think strategically about what days of the week and times of day employees are most often in the office. And what days of the week and times of day does management want them to be in the office? You can both draw employees in and optimize your food and beverage budget by supplying the office with not just the right  snacks and meals, but the right timing.
   
3. What do your employees actually want to eat or drink?
   
   Don’t waste your budget on snacks, meals, and drinks your team won’t enjoy. Get their input! A quick survey or poll can uncover valuable insights into their preferences and dietary restrictions. It could also be as simple as sending an office-wide email or Slack message to gather input. When employees feel heard and catered to, everyone wins. Here’s a list of 33 healthy snacks to get the ideas rolling for what you should stock in your office pantry.

🫰The Simple Secret to Mastering Your Food & Beverage Budget

You’re focused on offering a great in-office food and drink experience. Now, let’s tackle the harder part: budgeting. Especially if your company uses a hybrid model, with employees coming in at different times of day throughout the week, estimating how much food you’ll need is a challenge. Doubly so if you’re ordering for multiple office locations—or are planning to rapidly grow headcount, start a new return-to-office mandate, or have more customers or clients come visit the office.  

Now that you have the big picture in mind, zoom in to one specific detail: your ideal daily spend per employee. This is the easy way to build the right food and beverage budget every time. Start from the ground up. It gives you a clear metric to manage costs, whether it’s for daily snacks or occasional meals, and can be used to accurately estimate monthly and annual overall costs.

Budget tiers

Low Budget… $5 to $10 per person, per day. This tier is perfect for offices that want to provide the basics. A little goes a long way. Employees get a couple simple (but still delicious) snacks; an energizing beverage, such as coffee; and an occasional simple meal. Keeps the team happy without breaking the bank.

Moderate Budget… $11-$20 per person, per day. With this budget, you can add more variety in snacks, some premium beverage options, and a catered meal each week, providing employees a balance between quality and cost.

High Budget… $21+ per person, per day. This tier provides a premium experience, offering high-end snacks, a full array of beverage options, and several catered meals for employees, creating an elevated experience in the office.

Essential food and beverage offerings

Snacks

Focus on simple, affordable snacks that can be bought in bulk. Healthy options, like fruits and trail mix, are always a great choice—and can help to boost employee productivity by up to 20%.

• Bulk is key: Think big bags of apples, bananas, oranges.
• Pre-portioned for grab-and-go: Baby carrots, trail mix packs, individual popcorn bags.
• Simple & satisfying: Pretzels, rice cakes, whole-grain crackers.
• Protein boost: Hard-boiled eggs, peanut butter for crackers.
• Occasional treat: Dark chocolate squares (keep an eye out for when they go on sale!), fruit and nut bars.

Beverages

When it comes to what people are drinking in the office, don’t skimp. Understanding how hydration impacts productivity in the office begins with recognizing the effects of dehydration: studies show that just 1% dehydration can reduce productivity by 12%, and 3% to 4% dehydration can cause a 25% drop. That being said, you don’t need to go wild; stick to basic, everyday drinks, such as coffee, tea, and filtered water.

• Drip coffee is your friend: Mr. Coffee is an affordable workhorse! And it’s much more sustainable than single-serving pods offered by other premium coffee machines.
• Tea variety: Offer a selection of black, green, and herbal teas.
• Hydration heroes: Filtered water dispensers with ice are essential. To keep everyone hydrated, tap water dispensers are a cost-effective alternative to bottled water and eliminate the hassle of recycling, not to mention the thousands of nasty microplastics that end up in bottled water beverages. If you want to add flavor, sparkling options, or functional enhancements while keeping costs low, a refurbished Bevi water dispenser with a minimal service plan can be a great way to attract employees back to the office and simplify beverage management.

Meals

You don’t have to skip meals for employees just because you’re working with a tight budget. While you may want to make meals less frequent, they can still be memorable.

• DIY is cost-effective: Bagel and cream cheese breakfasts, build-your-own sandwich bars. You can buy these easily from the grocery store or local shop yourself rather than having it catered to save the money.
• Affordable crowd-pleasers: Order pizzas from your local pizza shop with veggie, dairy-free, and gluten-free options so there’s something for everyone.
• Resourceful & delicious: “Office potluck” where several people bring food from home. As a thank you, participants can receive small gift cards to local businesses, like coffee shops or eateries, offering a budget-friendly way to show appreciation.

Enhanced food and beverage offering

Upgrade your office offerings with fresh, healthy snacks, a few tasty treats, and even premium drinks like cold brew coffee on occasion. Add in one or two catered meals each week with diverse menu options to keep your team energized, connected, and satisfied—all within a balanced budget.

Snacks

Mix healthy options with a few indulgent treats. A moderate budget lets you stock up on a wider variety of snacks that keep the team happy and energized.

• Healthy & convenient: Greek yogurt, pre-cut veggies with hummus, protein bars.
• Variety is key: Mix in nuts, fruit platters, cheese sticks, whole-grain muffins.
• Small indulgences: Guacamole and chips, popcorn with nutritional yeast, dark chocolate.
• Energy boosters: Dried fruit, roasted chickpeas, trail mix with superfoods.
• Homemade treats: Sweeten the workday with shared snacks!  Think easy energy balls, rice krispie treats, or even a rotating roster of employee-led snack days. It’s a delicious way to build camaraderie.

Beverages

Expand your drink options with premium choices like cold brew coffee, kombucha, and a wider array of flavored and enhanced sparkling and still water.

• Upgrade your coffee: Explore better beans, cold brew options (bottled La Colombe from Costco is a big flavor bang for your buck), and flavored dairy and non-dairy creamers to top off the morning beverage.
• Fizzy fun: Bevi’s Standup 2.0 dispenser brings more customizations to the office water cooler, letting employees choose the temperature and level of bubbles in their beverage.
• Healthier choices: Kombucha, iced tea, coconut water, almond milk.
• Warm-up options: Hot chocolate, herbal teas. 

Meals

With a moderate budget, you can offer catered meals once or twice a week. Boost morale and productivity with delicious and diverse lunch options. 

• Variety is vital: mix it up between food options to keep things fresh and interesting (and maximum wow factor from employees), from Thai to Mediterranean, Mexican to Indian. The office kitchen can be made into a gateway to global cuisines.  
• Breakfast of champions: Yogurt parfait stations, breakfast burritos. These options can be seen as an exciting treat for employees on top of lunch, and make them feel supported throughout the day.

Elite food and beverage offering

Truly elevate your offerings with the most premium snacks, drinks, and daily catered meals for an exceptional team experience.

Snacks

Offer a wide variety of high-end, specialty snacks, including options tailored to dietary restrictions.

• Go gourmet: Organic fruit platters with exotic options, cheese and cracker trays with artisan cheeses.
• Elevated everyday snacks: Gourmet nuts, protein shakes, specialty snacks for dietary needs.
• Trendy & delicious: Vegetable chips, kale chips, frozen packets that make superfood smoothies.

Beverages

Provide a full range of premium beverages, including and especially coffee: more than 65% of employees expect high-quality coffee in the workplace.

• Coffee connoisseur: Artisanal coffee, cold brew on tap (a Kegco unit has a sleek look that fits with different office aesthetics), fresh juices, smoothies.
• Hydration haven: High-end kombucha and coconut water will complement the Bevi machines you’re using for still and sparkling water beverages. 
• Something for everyone: Organic almond and soy milk, artisan teas, matcha lattes.

Meals

Deliver high-quality catered meals daily, offering options for breakfast, lunch, and special occasions.

• Everything you love, more often: Take the meals employees are enjoying in your moderate budget and deliver them more frequently. 
• Restaurant quality: Poke bowls, sushi from a top-rated spot, and gourmet salads.
• Special occasion extravagance: Charcuterie boards, international cuisine, dessert bars.
• Unique experiences: Bring in local food trucks for a fun and different lunch options during special events, such as company outings and holiday parties, or the monthly all-hands meeting.

❤️ Food & Beverage Vendors We Love

At Bevi, in our headquarters, we view our food and beverage spend as a central perk for our employees and a way to draw people back into the office. Here are some vendors that we rely on to keep everyone fed and take care of the waste. (The hydration we’ve got on lock, with four Bevi machines across our 23,000 square-foot space.)

ezCater

• This is an all-in-one, digital vendor for your office catering needs, with a wide variety of restaurants and foods to choose from, so you can find the perfect meal for every occasion. 
• Ordering is super easy! You can browse menus, compare prices, and schedule deliveries all online. It’s a real time-saver.
• We love that ezCater helps us keep track of everything related to meal vending in one place. You can see all past orders, track spending, and even get a sense of what your team is enjoying the most. 

Amazon Prime 

• This is our go-to for ordering snacks. Need to restock the office pantry quickly? No problem. With Prime, you get the hallmark two-day free shipping on basically any snack option you can imagine.
• Buying snacks in bulk is a great way to save money. Amazon makes that easy as pie.
• We’re a big fan of the “subscribe & save” option. You can set up recurring deliveries of your office’s favorite snacks so you never run out. And costs will drive even lower over the long-run.

Bootstrap Composting

• Bootstrap Compost provides a hassle-free composting service that takes care of your biodegradable food waste; Bevi schedules for pick-ups twice a week.
• No need to worry about messy or smelly compost bins in the office. Bootstrap’s bins are designed to be odor-free and easy to use.
• We love that Bootstrap partners with local farms and gardens. It feels good to know that our office compost is helping to grow fresh food close to our community. 

Sweetgreen Outpost

• A convenient way to provide employees with healthy and delicious lunches; plus, it’s a totally flexible option that can deliver as many or as few meals as needed based on daily orders that are placed. 
• Everyone can find something they like at Sweetgreen. They have lots of different options and you can customize your order with different toppings and dressings.
• Sweetgreen is all about fresh, seasonal ingredients, and they try to source locally whenever possible. That’s a win-win for employee health and environmental health.

Build Your Budget 

Whether your office budget is $5 or $50 per person per day, there’s a food and beverage plan that fits your needs. Thoughtful planning and flexibility based on employee preferences will keep your team satisfied and engaged. By considering the big picture first, you can make smart decisions that keep costs in check while delivering value to your employees.