Café Services Revitalizes Corporate Dining At Gems Sensors & Controls
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Regional Corporate Dining Leader Is Clear Choice Over Other Connecticut Corporate Food Services Companies
When Gems Sensors & Controls chose Café Services over other Connecticut corporate food services companies to manage employee dining, the manufacturing firm faced 3 main challenges:
- Moving hourly employees with limited lunch time more efficiently through the cafeteria
- Delivering more value and variety to distinctly different groups of employees
- Increasing food service participation
Designing A Better Food Service Delivery Model—From Scratch
Café Services made a number of improvements to help Gems Sensors reach its goals. The first involved redesigning the cafeteria space to improve the flow of employees through lines at the food stations and cashier. A Board of Health directive to replace the cafeteria floor was the perfect opportunity to start from scratch.
Experts in cafeteria design, Café Services created a more efficient space by replacing a single long queue with multiple short queues to move people quickly from food station to cashier to table. It also added equipment to speed food preparation and deliver meals suitable for eating on the go—such as a new slicer and a pizza oven.
Palette-Pleasing Choices Suit A Variety of Tastes
The next challenge was delivering more choice to hourly and salaried employees—two diverse groups with different needs and tastes. To Gems Sensor’s nearly 200 hourly employees, many of them Spanish speaking, time and value are critical. With only a short lunch break, they prefer foods with grab-and-go convenience. Many save money by bringing lunch to work. When they purchase lunch, they favor ethnic meals and comfort food.
In contrast, the firm’s salaried employees (about 120) enjoy fewer time constraints and prefer healthier, more creative cuisines like salads and nutritious fish, chicken and vegetarian entrees.
Variety And Service Draw More To Cafeteria
Today, Café Services bridges these differences with a full smorgasbord of choices from value-priced beverages, desserts, pizza slices and soups to market fresh salads, lower-calorie entrees and healthy sides. Salads are premade—an appealing alternative when a salad bar isn’t available—and the menu features more meals with a Spanish flare.
Participation is up at about 60%, thanks to the Café Service emphasis on customer service. And Gems Sensors enjoys a degree of responsiveness and professionalism that’s unique to Café Services. Unlike other Connecticut corporate food service companies with a one-size-fits-all approach to service, Café Services gives its onsite associates the latitude to create a welcoming and energetic environment. Themed events are a big draw at Gems Sensors. In the fall, events featuring tailgate-style menus are especially popular with all employees.
Diner Satisfaction Drives Bottom Line Bonus
Just over half a year after partnering with Café Services, Gems Sensors is benefitting all around from a revitalized food service program. Everything is better—from food quality to operational efficiencies to perceived value by employees. But the most telling measure of success is diner satisfaction. A recent employee survey shows it’s never been higher—a bonus Gems Sensors takes straight to the bottom line.
I’ve been born and bred corporate dining and corporate catering from the very beginning of my career in the Silicon Valley and now, since 2001 in the Boston Metro Area. While working my way up through the ranks, all the experience has led up to my current position as the Corporate Executive Chef for Café Services, based out of Manchester, NH. I have the privilege to be able to utilize creativity, research and technology to dream up our company’s new culinary programs and custom menus for corporate cafeteria clients and bring them to life. Café Services supplies the resources to ensure success of our ever-evolving companywide culinary initiatives and I’m very grateful for the opportunity. Seeing the success of new programs in the field is my motivation. It’s a win win.