In what seems like a heartbeat, suddenly the price of pretty much everything has increased—especially food. In fact, since this time last year the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 7.2% increase in the index for food away from home in April. Overall, food prices rose 9.4% for the month, marking the largest single percentage increase seen since April 1981.
For the average American worker, there’s actually a word for the increased price of food. It's called “lunchflation,” and it’s a very real component to modern life in this brave, new age of ours, and it carries far-reaching ramifications. Even morning coffee is being affected by an increase in prices, when Starbucks recently announced it was forced to raise prices to offset the effects of supply chain disruptions.
Over the course of the last two years, office workers have discovered a significant price increase among lunch staples. Research has found that the price of lunch fare in major American cities has risen since the beginning of the pandemic by the following margins:
Most employees are noticing a price increase of between $4 and $10 per order. This is a substantial difference, especially when you factor in other variables such as the astronomical cost of gasoline.
The good news is that mobile ordering solutions such as Ritual and Ritual for Companies help mitigate the effects of lunchflation by putting more food on your plate at a lower cost. During a time when our lunch orders are withering due to inflation, low-fee solutions like Ritual act like a shield against lunchflation by providing you and your employees with more lunch for your buck.
In today's inflationary environment, it's more expensive to do pretty much anything. However, even prior to lunchflation ramping up, there was the issue of delivery fees and markups with food delivery apps.
Increasingly, food delivery apps have become even more popular with consumers. Yet, research has found that many of the popular apps charge as much as 91% more than what consumers paid in restaurants for the identical order.
Therefore an average of 37% is spent on delivery fees and markups. Here is an example of cost breakdown ordering meals for your employees to the office using food delivery apps.
A $4MM investment (1,000 employees x $15 per day) less 37% equals:
With Ritual, you can avoid these costly fees and put more lunch money in your employees’ pockets. Simply cutting back on delivery fees and other markups can save your organizations millions of dollars in unnecessary expenses and increase each of your team member’s lunch budget by over one-third.
As a primary product, Ritual for Companies is the most powerful mobile ordering platform available to companies. Organizations can welcome back team members with customizable meal plans offering a huge selection of restaurant options that will satisfy any palate.
Not only will organizations attract and retain exceptional talent, but increase team productivity and employee satisfaction. Moreover, Ritual for Companies offers wholly customizable corporate meal programs that will work with any budget.
Below is an example of how Ritual for Companies works:
The result? Every employee gets more money in their pocket to spend on lunch that they would under any food delivery app or competing platform.
In addition, team members are incentivized to return to the office with location-based geolocation credits. Using location-based services (LBS) technology, simply preselect a radius around your office location and issue meal credits to employees. Next, set an expiration day for your team members to redeem the geolocation credits.
A core solution of Ritual for Companies is group ordering. All team members can enjoy an individually customized meal with features like either an option for delivery or pick up, pay in full or split the order, and loyalty stamps for company credits on eligible orders.
Group ordering with Ritual for Companies works as follows:
When you sign up with Ritual for Companies, you pay no fees - whether they be setup or administrative fees. Plus, organizations only pay when team members are utilizing meal credits. Ultimately, you pay less money and get more food than you would elsewhere for every dollar spent.
Prices are universally increasing due to lunchflation. With food prices at levels not seen in four decades, saving both time and money is crucial for every organization, and Ritual can help you do just that.
Ritual for Companies offers cost-saving solutions with completely customizable meal plans at no additional costs for your company. At a time when lunch costs are on the rise, Ritual for Companies ensures that money is being spent not on hidden delivery fees or markups, but on what is important—your team members, and the food they love.
