While many companies are beginning to offer in-office catering to employees, the more innovative companies have begun to offer lunch stipends.
Lunch stipends are becoming popular because they’re 100% customizable to every employee regardless of their dietary restrictions, preferences, location, etc.
If you’ve never heard of a perk stipend, it’s a like a Flexible Spending Account (FSA), but instead of being a dedicated account for out-of-pocket health care costs, it’s a stipend given to employees to spend on perks. For lunch stipends, they’re often stipends given to employees to spend on lunch or any meal including breakfast, dinner, and snacks.
Tommy Barth, a recruiter at Circle which gives employees $200 a month for food, said this when asked what is his favorite perk Circle offers, “My favorite perk is our $200 per month stipend for lunches. A lot of companies cater lunch each day, but we give our employees the flexibility to choose from the hundreds of food trucks and restaurants in the downtown Boston area.”
Other companies that offer their employees lunch stipends include Snapchat, ConnectWise, and SAP. CB Insights also offers a perk stipend but takes a unique approach – by letting employees order through the Seamless application.
