1 week Ago By Jon Stojan
Opinions expressed by Digital Journal contributors are their own. Food waste is a significant problem throughout the US, and office environments are no exception. Add the related issue of poor nutrition and its adverse effects on worker health and performance, and you have a problem that a high-tech company like Google should be eager to solve.
Indeed, they very much are. Google’s Mountain View campus boasts many healthy workplace features, including bright architecture, artful decoration, and a comprehensive on-site cafe. With the help of entrepreneur Tobias Waldhecker and his company, Fuel Nutrition, the Mountain View campus has focused directly on food waste and worker health.
Fuel Nutrition was built to make tasty and nutritious food easily accessible in corporate settings, where busy schedules often push workers to unhealthy eating habits and wasteful products. Under Waldhecker, the company aimed to reduce food waste while improving the dietary choices available to employees, living up to their mission statement: “We make fitness food available to busy companies so their talent stays fit and healthy long-term.” The partnership went both ways.
Fuel joined a Google-led accelerator program and used the resources and opportunity this gave them to create a better environment for workers at the Mountain View campus. This collaboration provided Fuel with the opportunity to build and refine its approach to tackling the issues of food waste and poor nutrition in corporate environments. Fuel describes the problem in these terms: “As we spend about one-third of our day in an office, we should have access to quality nutrition during that time.
Sedentary lifestyles paired with constant snacking and high-calorie food intake can impact the health and performance of employees.” Waldhecker wanted his company to ensure that quality nutrition was accessible during working hours in the most convenient ways for workers and with enough quality and variety that they would choose to forego more wasteful products. Fuel developed a high-level strategy focused on three key points: By achieving these goals, as well as through thoughtful planning and sustainable practices, Fuel would also be able to reduce the food waste created in the office significantly.
To bring these solutions to life, Fuel Nutrition worked on a range of actionable strategies designed to meet the demands of the modern workplace. The company focuses on delivering clean, nutritionally balanced, ready-to-eat, convenient, and tasty meals. They aimed to work exclusively on a business-to-business basis with small and medium-sized enterprises, making Google’s Mountain View campus the perfect place to trial their new relationship.
It was also part of the company’s plans to provide corporate catering services and enhance existing solutions with their offerings. They would provide breakfast, lunch, snacks, and nutritious shakes so that workers had a range of healthy options throughout the day. It was essential to have the flexibility to work with their facilities (providing fridges and offering venues, for instance) or operate within a company’s existing infrastructure to deliver their services.
This would require Fuel to collaborate with a network of co-packers to execute proprietary recipes at scale and maintain quality and consistency. A refrigerated warehouse in the Bay Area allowed them to hold inventory and distribute food daily to clients while maintaining freshness and reliability. Reducing food waste, another essential focus for Fuel Nutrition, requires using the latest tracking technology to track inventory and optimize food production and delivery.
Upcycling ingredients was a major focus of Fuel’s efforts, and donating surplus food to local organizations helped to reduce food waste further while contributing to the well-being of the surrounding community. Unfortunately, the pressure of the pandemic interrupted Fuel Nutrition’s partnership with the Google campus. Still, Waldhecker and the many people involved in the project learned essential lessons about reducing food waste and providing nutrition to workers in corporate environments.
As Waldhecker’s efforts demonstrated, addressing the needs of workers while maintaining the strategic organization to minimize waste requires a large-scale, strategic approach. These lessons and experiences have all contributed to Waldhecker’s ongoing efforts to tackle global challenges through collaborative, future-focused, and sustainable processes. By embracing solutions like Fuel Nutrition, world-leading companies like Google can set a powerful example for others to follow.
A commitment to enhancing workplace nutrition and minimizing food waste can inspire a more significant cultural shift toward health and sustainability at the corporate level, which is why office workers have reason to hope — and even advocate — for an environment that better suits their needs. Jon Stojan is a professional writer based in Wisconsin. He guides editorial teams consisting of writers across the US to help them become more skilled and diverse writers.
In his free time he enjoys spending time with his wife and children..
