This has had a disheartening effect on corporate foodservice. “Lunch participation in corporate cafeterias has been declining in the last four years,” says Tom Newcomb, president of Corporate Dining, a Chagrin Falls, Ohio, consulting and design firm. According to Corporate Dining's FoodMark report, in 2004, average employee participation in a corporate dining program was 43.4 percent, compared with 38.5 percent today.

Although check averages, as well as pricing, continue to rise, employee dining is not a growth segment in a traditional sense. “There are not many new corporate cafeterias being built like there were in the '80s. Instead, 20- to 30-year-old facilities are typically rehabbed,” Newcomb says. “While corporate dining operations built 10-to-15 years ago could be compared to a Jaguar, today these types of operations are built more like Hondas.” Consequently, companies continue to retrofit many dining facilities in inherited spaces that may not have previously served in the same capacity.

Businesses that make the investment in their employees, however, are finding that corporate dining operations make sense from both a productivity and staff-retention perspective.

Because employee dining facilities compete with area restaurants, many of the trends in this segment mirror what's going on with QSRs.

Rick Gentry, director of technical services at Philadelphia-based Aramark, which has approximately 1,200 corporate dining operations across North America, says employee dining facilities geared to compete with nearby restaurants need to offer the same types of ambiance and food quality. The result has been less traditional cafeteria-style setups and more cutting-edge operations.

“A lot of employee dining has moved to display cooking and prep out front,” Gentry says. “The back of the house in this segment is shrinking and becoming a less critical part of the business.”

As a result of space limitations, the equipment needs of corporate dining have changed.

According to Ted Farrand, vice president of Cini-Little International, headquartered in Germantown, Md., equipment that satisfies these needs should provide not only fast production, but also easy installation. “This includes hoodless units and ovens that combine multiple cooking methods to produce food in 90 seconds. These ovens combine high-speed convection air, variable microwave energy and optional infrared heating. Induction burners, which offer non-flame cooking, are another popular option,” he says.

With the recent economic downturn, many businesses continue to feel the pinch of the capital costs needed to build and operate foodservice operations. Farrand says this has resulted in a setback of sorts. “Several companies are deciding to forego building a complete kitchen due to cost. Instead, they are moving back to using off-site sources for prepared food, which is delivered daily to their employee foodservice facility. This is the opposite of where this segment is today,” he says, adding that food safety and quality can be compromised with these systems.

One of the key focuses in employee dining is labor savings. These facilities have incorporated updated equipment and production methods that require fewer staff members to employ.

Slow-cooking, cook-chill and cook-hold production have helped increase yields while decreasing labor at the unit level, notes Rich Arakelian, national executive chef at Gaithersburg, Md.-based Sodexo, which operates more than 1,500 corporate dining operations across the country.

Speedy service also is paramount, but can be difficult to achieve, since corporate diners look for customized dishes, like tossed-to-order salads, cooked-to-order pasta and made-to-order sandwiches. “These diners want to get in and get out, but want dishes created just for them,” Arakelian says. “Ovens that employ a combination of high-speed convection air, variable microwave energy and infrared heating have become more prevalent to customize quick-cook items like sandwiches and pizza.”

The trend toward sustainability and environmentally friendly equipment also has begun to cross over into the corporate dining segment. Consequently, more operators seek equipment and options that help save energy and water.

“Simple water-saving devices can be purchased, such as pre-rinse units with low-pressure valves, for the dishroom. These units maintain the necessary cleaning ability, while using less water. Faucet aerators operating at 2½-gals. per minute also conserve water,” Farrand says. “Nugget ice machines are another water saver incorporated by this segment and can cut water use by a third.”

Energy-saving equipment appearing more regularly in corporate dining kitchens includes exhaust systems with variable-speed fans, electric fryers instead of gas, reach-in refrigerators with solid half doors instead of glass full doors and grooved griddles as opposed to charbroilers, according to Farrand.

Sodexo's operations have been focusing on sustainability by instituting certification training programs for its employees in all of its locations. The company's seven-module program provides information on everything from recycling to composting and local farming to green cleaning agents.

On the food front, corporate dining menus reflect trends of both casual- and fine-dining restaurants.

Spanish foods, such as small plates or tapas, are becoming more prevalent, along with Asian foods like Thai, Japanese and Korean barbecue, Arakelian says.

Many of these operations also gear their menus towards health-conscious customers. Sodexo's Your Healthier Way program features specific recipes that include restaurant-style food with a focus on wellness. Selections have a limited calorie count and include set amounts of fiber. “All of our café platforms, including the grill, deli, soup and entrée areas, are designed to incorporate this program, which is evolving and changing constantly,” Arakelian says.

The competition for employees has translated into more desirable benefits and incentives. This has had a major impact on the employee dining segment. “The result is a greater variety of food that is of a higher quality,” says Tony Clevenger, president of Clevenger Associates, Puyallup, Wash.

Clevenger's client, Microsoft Corp., is developing a new series of buildings that will expand its Redmond, Wash., campus by 5,000 employees. This will include a commons complex that will accommodate 12 separate restaurants with different vendors and food concepts. The proposal includes a casual-dining restaurant adjacent to the company's athletic field; an Indian eatery with indoor and outdoor seating; a Mexican restaurant; and other unique concepts. Clevenger says Microsoft is branding its food and buying the right to use recipes and branded items.

“What's driving the corporate dining segment is companies seeking to provide an amenity that helps them attract the best people and keep them,” Clevenger says. “The trend is to differentiate the dining facilities from other competing companies and find the best foodservice model that appeals to the business' employee base.”

Microsoft is a good example of a company that is catering to its employees. Its lunch participation rate at its 30 corporate dining facilities hovers around 55 percent, above the national average, with more than 60 percent of its employees visiting the cafés throughout the day.

As head of Microsoft's subsidized foodservice program, Mark Freeman, employee services senior manager, is working with Clevenger and spearheading the new dining concept. Construction is expected to be complete within the next year.

The 1 million-square-foot complex will have its five buildings surrounding the commons, which will include a bank, post office, mini spa and urban food market, along with the 12 restaurants. “These will consist of designated facilities for specific foodservice brands, rather than just including these products within our cafeteria as we are currently doing. This will help enhance our Local Brands program,” Freeman explains.

Microsoft's Local Brands program provides regional restaurants with the opportunity to sell their products in the company's employee dining facilities. Twenty-eight restaurants participate in the program. “This helps expand our cafés' variety,” Freeman says. Food types range from Indian to barbecue and Mexican to vegetarian. While some restaurants have set up kiosks to prepare food on-site, others bring in food that's already prepared.

On occasion, Microsoft will bring in the necessary equipment to prepare a restaurant's menu items on-site. In one Microsoft café, tandoori ovens were brought in to prepare food from a local East Indian restaurant.

The flexibility of this program remains central to its success. For example, one barbecue restaurant began its program with Microsoft by bringing in prepared food. After about a month, Freeman decided it would be better to rotate its food delivery among different sites. “Because their food and program is portable, we were able to move the offerings from café to café each week. This provides employees with variety, and prevents them from getting bored with the menu,” he explains.

Freeman adds that he is always on the lookout for new and unusual concepts to incorporate into the company's dining program. One example is O Naturals, a sustainable deli based in Portland, Maine. The company was brought in by Compass Group, Microsoft's vendor and foodservice management company, which is based in Charlotte. Adding O Naturals represents another step in Microsoft's green initiative. “The big push right now is sustainability, and how we're impacting the environment is front and center within our operations,” he says.

Microsoft's annual surveys have shown that, although employees are satisfied with the variety and quality of the cafés' food, they want the foodservice program to become more environmentally sound. Freeman is working on addressing these concerns.

Although the company has corporate dining facilities in all five of its locations, 80 percent of the cafés are at the Redmond headquarters. This site also is home to Red West, which, at 50,000-square-feet, is Microsoft's largest café. The smallest operation is the 1,000-square-foot Espresso Plus, an espresso stand and convenience-store concept that offers grab 'n go items, including sandwiches, soup and salad.

“Many of our kitchens were built awhile back with the idea that we would commissary all of our food. Our current strategy is to have food prepared on-site, so our newer buildings have their own kitchens,” Freeman says. Early on, a cookie-cutter concept was used to design these operations, but the strategy has since changed. “I've tried to make each one unique.”

The focus is on “menutainment” or display cooking, which has played a big part in Microsoft's foodservice operations, Freeman says. Each café includes staples, like a grill, deli, salad bar and pizza station. The display cooking lineup is a virtual United Nations, with a wok cooking up stir-fry situated next to a tandoori oven used for Indian dishes. The lineup also includes a gas-fired pizza oven for the popular flatbread pizzas.

This display area also includes a griddle and broiler, flat-top grill and butcher display cases containing specialty meats like marinated chicken, steak for sandwiches and large portabella mushrooms. Combi ovens, tilting skillets, bain maries, a dishwasher, freezers and coolers are out of sight in the back of the house.

Microsoft still has a commissary kitchen, which is mainly used for on-campus catering in its headquarters' conference center.

Rather than the typical cafeteria footprint, the newer café dining rooms have been broken up. For example, Red West has the grill, pizza station and deli downstairs, while the seating areas are upstairs. This provides employee diners with a scenic view of the evergreen trees and brook outside.

Overall, the concept has shifted away from the traditional rows of tables in a mess hall-type atmosphere to more of a restaurant setup. “Red West has a lodge-like décor, fitting well into the outside motif,” Freeman says. “The dining room consists of areas where large groups can meet, or people can sit by themselves or in groups of two or four.”

Like Microsoft, all of Aramark's business dining locations differ in size, style and selection. Its headquarters' Tower Café is an example of where this segment is headed. The concept focuses on creating food destinations as opposed to cafeteria lines.

A variety of food zones are arranged for dual use of equipment and to make the most of similar ingredients, enhancing efficiency. For example, near the deli area's panini and flatbread sandwiches, is a conveyor oven, which also services the adjacent chef's station. Hamburgers or turkey burgers are made to order in the grill area, which is located by the fry station.

The salad and pasta bars provide fresh ingredients, such as lettuce, vegetables and proteins, along with different types of pasta and sauces, so employee diners can customize their selections. Rather than list them on a menu board, the food choices are displayed in European glass cases to enhance each item's visual appeal. “It's all put together by a chef who's working the pans. This allows customers to feel as if they are personally involved with the meal's creation,” Gentry says.

Although regional favorites are common, each site's menu depends on the company and the employee experience it is seeking to provide, Gentry says. “A café may be in an assembly-line format with a limited number of hot entrées. Other concepts focus on hot sides, like soup or chili, instead of entrées. We custom-design the menu to fit the way employees work. We are also flexible in terms of utilizing space,” he says.

The Tower Café is open for breakfast and lunch, while the Java City coffee bar offers grab 'n go breakfast selections, beverages and dessert items. Aramark also runs full and modified convenience stores on business campuses. These sites include a wide range of grab 'n go menu items.

Gentry says some subsidized dining operations are encouraging employees to make healthier choices. “With the rising cost of employee benefits, many businesses are trying to encourage their employees to maintain healthier lifestyles. To help facilitate this, an employer may subsidize their turkey burger, rather than the cheeseburger, to encourage people to make better food choices,” he says.

Even with a somewhat captive client base, corporate dining is not without its challenges.

Like in other foodservice segments, many say the big focus in employee foodservice is on customer satisfaction. “In this business, if you can keep 51 percent of your customers happy, you're doing great,” Freeman says.

Microsoft café diners can visit the MS Dining web page at any time to comment on their foodservice experience. “Two years ago, we were receiving more negative than positive reports. Now, we are receiving five positive reports for every negative report. I credit Compass for turning our program around. It has also been beneficial to have managers on the floor during the lunch hours,” Freeman says.

Beyond today's economic challenges that include commodity food increases and skyrocketing overheard costs, this segment deals with such operational challenges as labor, budgets and food quality, Arakelian says. “Many corporations also are downsizing, so attracting and retaining customers is even more difficult in this rapidly changing environment. We're looking at everything and trying to be as diligent with service and quality as possible,” he says.

Along with corporate downsizing, benefits are being cut by many businesses today, including subsidized employee dining. “Subsidized meals are going by the wayside,” Arakelian says.

Despite these issues, corporate dining remains a viable segment. With increased competition for foodservice dollars, businesses that are innovative and offer quality food are destined to succeed.

By incorporating equipment that provides accelerated cooking and quality results, in addition to environmentally friendly features, these operators will have the tools to go head-to-headwith area restaurants.

Flexibility and variety are key to the success of Microsoft's cafés. In addition to offering a wide variety of branded restaurant items, the dining program has a rotating menu.

Display cooking plays a big part in Microsoft's 30 employee dining operations. Microsoft photos courtesy of Microsoft

Because time is of the essence in corporate dining, Aramark's Tower Café features a variety of food zones arranged for dual use of equipment and the incorpora- tion of similar ingredients to enhance efficiency.