There’s a very specific feeling that comes with ordering food for the office. Whether it’s daily, weekly, or for a special event, you try to plan ahead and make sure everyone will have something to eat that they enjoy. But regardless, half the food still ends up in the trash while a few people quietly sort lunch out on their own, like they always do.
That’s what happens when dietary accommodations in the workplace are overlooked.
Considering roughly 1 in 6 U.S. adults follow a special diet. Food allergies are everywhere, even before you even get into religious diets, lactose intolerance, or the very real number of people who just aren’t interested in eating what was ordered.
Yet, for some reason, office food is still treated like everyone eats the same way, on the same schedule, every single time.
Food gets complicated because it’s social. Lunch is where people gather and end up in valuable natural discussions. When the food doesn’t work, most people don’t make a scene - they just stop showing up for it. They resort to bringing something from home and eating at their desks.
The longer their preferences aren’t taken into consideration, the more likely you’ll see the inclusive workplace environment start to disappear. Which will have serious impacts on productivity and retention.
Food is one of the few things at work that’s both personal and public. You can struggle quietly with bad software but you can’t quietly not eat lunch. When food doesn’t work for someone, it shows.
More people have dietary needs than they used to, that part isn’t up for debate anymore. This isn’t people being dramatic or picky, it’s people who can’t gamble with food. When dietary accommodations in the workplace don’t meet the needs of the employees, the same results happen every time:
The problem causes more than just increased food waste. Employees who don’t eat properly lose energy and focus. People working long, busy hours start to burn out and make more mistakes without access to proper meals.
Companies face new risks too. Food allergies are medical conditions. Religious dietary needs are legally protected. Repeated exclusion creates real HR and legal exposure.
At some point, this stops being about lunch menus. It becomes a question of whether your workplace is built for real people, or for a version of them that satisfies your “weekly lunch perks.”
Decision makers tend to get defensive about their food program. They say they try to offer options, and remind teams that they unfortunately can’t accommodate “everything.”
Really, though, employees aren’t asking for everything, they just need you to be aware of their restrictions and have an option for them that doesn’t dissuade them from participating.
Every business needs to prepare for:
Food allergies alone affect more than one in ten adults. Allergies are dangerous. Sometimes life threatening. They’re not something a business can afford to overlook.
Then there are intolerances. Gluten. Dairy. Soy. Things people don’t always announce, because let’s be honest, it’s not a fun topic and explaining your stomach to coworkers feels exhausting.
Where this breaks down isn’t usually malice, it’s an afterthought. A missing label, a shared serving spoon, or someone saying, “It should be fine.” That phrase has probably ruined more office lunches than bad catering ever has.
People think avoiding pork or shellfish covers it. Often it doesn’t. Preparation matters. Cross-contact contamination matters. Trust matters.
Employees following religious dietary rules usually won’t argue. They’ll just skip the food and move on. Over time, that sends a message about who the office is really built for, and creates “discrimination” risks that businesses don’t want to deal with.
An inclusive workplace environment doesn’t need perfection here, just honesty and consideration. Being able to say how something was prepared, not just what’s in it.
Veganism and vegetarianism are a lot more popular these days. Around 22% of people identify as vegetarian, which means this shows up in offices whether anyone plans for it or not. You can feel it right away when the plant-based option was added late or not at all. Salad-only fixes don’t land as neutral.
They feel rushed. Like someone checked a box and moved on. A real veggie meal doesn’t need to be impressive, it just has to feel intentional. People shouldn’t feel like they don’t have access to a full meal just because they want to avoid meat.
Some people follow specific diets to lose weight, a lot of others need to avoid certain foods for other medical reasons, like heart health, diabetes, or hypertension. The mistake offices make is forcing disclosure. Asking people to explain why they need something different. That’s not inclusion. That’s pressure.
Thankfully, there’s an easy fix. By asking and tracking what your employees can and can’t eat - you’ll always know what to order and show them you truly care about accommodating their dietary preferences.
Or another option, delivery or catering from local restaurants with customizable menus, solve these issues more often than not. Especially when people can pick what works for them and enjoy it at the lunch table with everyone.
Realistically, traditional catering should work, and for some companies it still does. You pick a restaurant. You pick a headcount. Food shows up. Everyone eats. Done.
Where it gets tricky is when hybrid work schedules make it harder to plan for what everyone needs consistently. Attendance isn’t stable, Tuesdays feel busy while Fridays feel empty. Some people decide to come in because of meetings, others because lunch looks good, others because they need to run an errand by the office. No matter the reason, trying to lock in a headcount 24–48 hours ahead is almost impossible, so dietary accommodations in the workplace naturally break down.
Traditional catering assumes everyone is the same. One menu. One delivery time. One big order meant to cover everyone. That works when people eat the same way and show up at the same time. But that’s rarely how modern offices operate in this day and age.
What actually happens looks more like this:
This is how office managers end up tired or worn down. RSVP chasing, Slack pings, last-minute changes, and apologizing when lunch doesn’t stretch far enough. The work keeps stacking up, but you’re spending too much time on lunch orders that continually don’t meet everyone’s needs.
That’s why traditional catering keeps failing - because it was built for a workplace that isn’t real anymore.
Most offices struggle with dietary inclusivity because they keep patching problems instead of fixing what’s underneath them. It’s not about building the perfect menu. It’s about setting up a workplace food program that builds accommodations and logistics directly into it.
Dietary needs are personal. Sometimes medical, religious, or just not something someone wants to explain in a team Slack thread. Think carefully about how you gather information, use:
Good workplace accommodations make it easy to share once, and not have to relive it every lunch. Technology helps here too, making it easier to track requirements without asking the same questions repeatedly.
Stop treating dietary needs as exceptions. If you plan menus as if someone needs gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian, or allergen-aware options, you’ll almost always be right.
A few habits that help:
When dietary accommodations in the workplace are considered when you start planning, they stop feeling like last-minute favors.
Labels aren’t decision-making tools. If someone has to ask three questions before eating, trust is already gone. What helps:
This is one of those small, often forgotten details that makes or breaks an inclusive workplace environment. When labeling is reliable, people relax. When it isn’t, they won’t take the risk and go elsewhere.
Someone will forget to mention a restriction. Someone new will show up. Someone’s needs will change. That’s normal. Smart setups plan for it by offering a few universally safe options or simple grab-and-go pantry backups.
This is another place where rigid catering models struggle, and where more flexible approaches start to make more sense.
You don’t need a quarterly focus group for lunch.
A short pulse check does the job:
Patterns show up quickly when you’re looking for them. If the same issue keeps coming back, it’s a system problem.
If you’re trying to support dietary inclusivity without turning lunch into a second job, this is where to focus.
Most food programs fail simply because they ask one person to guess correctly for everyone else. Fooda works differently. It removes the guessing.
Instead of one person trying to remember who eats what, people just order for themselves. They pick what works for them that day. Their diet. Their appetite. No explanation needed.
This is also where a lot of admin work disappears, because you’ve got the right tech in place to order and track the most important details for you.
Hybrid schedules make headcount unpredictable. Traditional catering doesn’t handle that well. You either over-order or risk running out.
Fooda doesn’t require minimums. Meals are consolidated from the restaurants you want, based on actual orders, and delivered without any hassle. If 19 people order, food is made for 19 people. Not 30 “just in case.” That’s why Fooda fits so naturally into hybrid offices and workplace accommodations that need to flex. You’re feeding real attendance, not guesses.
Rotating local restaurants brings different cuisines into the office. That variety naturally creates more options across diets: vegetarian, vegan, halal-friendly, gluten-aware, dairy-free, without forcing anyone to engineer the perfect menu.
Repetition is one of the fastest ways participation drops with any meal program so providing variety also keeps people engaged.
Fooda works on normal days and messy ones. Every day lunches. A couple anchor days a week. Random team events. It scales up. It scales down. No rigid schedules to babysit. That flexibility matters when you’re trying to keep things inclusive without adding more work to an already full plate.
Read this and answer honestly.
If you hesitated on more than a couple of these, the issue probably isn’t effort. It’s structure.
People don’t forget how food makes them feel at work.
They remember the meeting where lunch ran out, the catered spread they couldn’t eat from, and when they started deciding it was easier to bring their own food and eat alone.
This is why dietary accommodations in the workplace matter. Food is one of the few things at work everyone clocks, even if they never say anything. This isn’t about nailing it every time. It’s about being honest about how offices actually function. People eat differently. Attendance changes. Workplace accommodations can’t run on good intentions.
If you’re tired of throwing food away, chasing headcounts, or hearing “lunch ran out” again, it’s worth seeing what a catering program looks like when it’s designed for inclusivity from the start.
Ready to create a customized workplace food program? Get in touch with Fooda and provide your employees with a perk they’ll utilize daily and have a hard time leaving behind.
