Updated Quarterly | October 14, 2026
+1.68%
$13.90
The cost of lunch in the workplace impacts millions of American workers every day. It fluctuates, especially over the last few years. The FPI is a simple, realistic barometer for understanding where the economy actually stands.
Every day, Fooda's restaurant partners sell lunch to hundreds of thousands of people at work across the country. Prices are set by the restaurants themselves, making the FPI a direct reflection of real market conditions.
Stories from Fooda's customer order data.
While the average price of a workplace lunch has increased over the past five years, inflation-adjusted order values have remained relatively flat.
The baseline for price is set from Jan 2021. The inflation adjustment we use to calculate the nominal vs. real price is the "Food away from home" CPI.
Tuesday and Thursday have gradually gained share of weekly lunch orders, suggesting workplace lunch activity is expanding beyond the traditional Wednesday peak.
Across the markets Fooda serves, workplace lunch prices have increased about 5% more than wages over the past five years.
Wage change is the employment-weighted BLS OEWS median hourly wage across 11 white-collar occupation groups; lunch change is Fooda consumer popup lunch prices. Both are measured against 2021.
The Fooda Price Index (FPI) tracks the real price of lunch in the workplace, based on millions of transactions across Fooda's national network. It reflects the total price paid per order and includes only Popup restaurant transactions at locations where employees primarily pay for their own meals.
Each month, the index is calculated by dividing total gross food sales by total meals sold. Because every meal counts equally, the result reflects the natural mix of cuisines, concepts, price points, and locations across the network, with no adjustments or discounts.
Year-over-year price change compares the rolling 12 Month period's average meal price to the 12 month period in the prior year. For the headline figure, that means the last 12 months average versus the same period one year earlier.
