Micro Markets For Fresh, Safe and Contactless Food Service
What is a Micro Market?
A micro market is a retail environment that provides safe open access to a variety of food, snacks and convenience products. All food options, beverages and other items are displayed via open shelves, reach-in coolers and freezers.
Fresh micro market lunches and healthy snack items displayed in open chiller at one of our Massachusetts corporate food service accounts.
This essential evolution from vending machines also features contactless unattended self-checkout kiosks.
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Employees gain a hybrid experience of access to fresh foodservice and convenience store items.
Micro markets are ideal for workplace locations that require a cashless unattended payment experience.
Corporate cafeteria conversion into hybrid micro market in Connecticut corporate dining account.
Micro markets are not a new concept, yet the COVID-19 pandemic has increased their popularity as a component of (and temporary replacement for) full-service corporate cafeterias. Company leaders value a dining service operator with the expertise and experience to create and manage affordable micro markets that benefit their employees and enhance their profitability.
Benefits of Café Services’ Micro Markets and Food Service Kiosks
As an experienced corporate dining services operator, Café Services streamlines quality foodservice and catering solutions for clients throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.
Access to Fresh Food Vending Machines, With Food Prepared and Packaged On-site
Freshly-prepared and packaged food for micro market at corporate dining account in Pennsylvania.
We work to mirror your corporate personality and culture, and monitor your staff’s preferences. This enables us to provide everyone at your location with access to fresh food vending, made in-house daily from scratch, and professionally packaged for safe contactless purchase. We constantly replenish our coolers with more of the most popular foods, and introduce new menu choices to give diners additional fresh options.
Safe Contactless Shopping, Ordering and Self-Checkout
Your team can select and safely purchase their items with several touchless options, outlined below.
Self checkout POS kiosk in Rhode Island micro market.
Kiosks Provide Grab-and-Go Convenience
Our open rack displays feature attractive packages of food freshly-made on premises and barcoded for self-serve and self-scan-and-go convenience via user-friendly touchless checkout kiosks.
Convenient Technology Enabled Service
App technology allows employees to pre-order and pre-pay online.
Micro market operators leverage technology to protect employees and customers with contactless checkout for a safe touchless experience. Employees enjoy a variety of payment options such as Apple Pay, preloaded cards or employer subsidized keychain fobs, chip-enabled credit cards, stored value market or debit cards, declining balance cards, pay by phone, and others.
Employees in locations with preorder and prepay service enjoy a customized online ordering application that enables them to order and purchase meals fast and easily from their devices.
Micromarkets Offer a Variety of Food and Products
Micromarkets, in addition to traditional convenience store offerings such as snacks, beverages, coffee, and sundries offer increased product variety for people with dietary restrictions such as gluten free, dairy free, and low carb diets.
Convenient 24hr access to grab-and-go, self-checkout food in our customer's New York micro market.
Anytime Access Increases Sales
Micromarkets offer 24-hour, every-day convenience and wide product variety of on-site retail markets attracts consumers to shop frequently. This frequency increases sales that can enable a firm to generate greater profit and potentially reinvest in higher levels of operator support by Café Services.
Secure Video Monitoring
Secure video technology monitors the open flow environment as consumers enjoy self-checkout via cashless payment options. This enables an operator to keep labor costs down and supports increasing operational efficiencies.
Employees Benefit from Enhanced Productivity and Morale
Micro market operators protect employees and customers from the risks of going off-site (during a pandemic or just a busy work day) to purchase lunch and other products. These time and risk-savings serve to enhance productivity and increase participation, which leads to higher profitability for a firm.
Micro Market Vending: Convenient, Profitable Alternative to Vending Machines
The profitability and goodwill that micro markets generate often triggers companies to remove or replace their limited-capacity vending machines with modern equipment such as reach-in refrigerators, open rack display units, and cashless payment options.
When a Micro Market is a Good Fit for Your Company and Employees
For companies with 200+ staff members, a micro market is a fresh alternative to off-site vending company services or lackluster vending machines with limited products. The best micro market solutions are custom-designed to fit your company’s specific needs and corporate culture.
Top Reasons to Consider a Micro Market from Café Services for Your Employees
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- Ideal food service and products solution for firms with 200+ employees
- Food is made fresh on-site; menus are customized to your population’s preferences
- Fresh alternative to office breakroom vending machines with low product variety
- Provides more integrity than off-site micro market vendors and refreshment services
- Contactless solutions enhance staff well-being & increase dining participation
- Micro markets increase sales over vending machines
- Catering ensures safe food options for staff convenience and productivity
Micro Markets Service Options
Our food services and retail product programs are directed 100% on-site by dedicated chef managers. No two Café Services micro markets are alike. Each micro market is customized to your location and scaled to grow with your unique office needs.
Grab-and-Go, Self-Checkout
Your office employees can enjoy fresh food vending made daily by our on-site chef managers and specially-packaged for self-checkout at easy-to-use unattended kiosks.
Preorder & Prepay Options for Meals, Snacks, Coffee and Other Beverages
Staff members may customize their order, submit payment online and designate the time they wish to pick up their professionally-prepared meals, premium sandwiches, salads, snacks, and beverages. Their orders are securely packaged for safe contactless pickup in a designated location.
On-site Catering
Available on-site catering supports staff needs for breakfast, lunch, meetings, and special events.
Our on-site catering drop-off service features individually-packaged food and snacks available for delivery throughout your building. Your team will appreciate the opportunity to order freshly-made, individually boxed meals from our in-house kitchen and served with quality brands of condiments and chips. All food items are attractively wrapped or boxed in tamper-evident packaging.
Take Home Meals
Employees also value the benefit of ordering build-their-own meal kits to take home for dinner or brunch, as well as convenient on-site access to fresh produce and other grocery items.
Visit our contactless dining services page to discover our innovative specialty items and popular food products such as meat-by-the-pound “grill boxes”, holiday take-home meal kits, and other options.
How Café Services Converts Full-service Dining to a Micro Market Concept
Touchless checkout at micro market account in Massachusetts.
Café Services is a leading provider of full-service corporate dining programs. Even before micro markets became popular, we worked closely with our clients to provide an innovative variety of food service and catering resources. Retail markets were already becoming integrated into our cafes with unattended kiosks from which staff members could securely purchase meals with fast touchless checkout.
When the COVID-19 pandemic arose, we were well-positioned to pivot in support of client needs.
We enabled employers with existing on-site cafeterias to continue to provide their staff with more fully built-out markets that comply with stringent safety protocols and serving requirements.
We also began enabling firms without traditional onsite cafeterias to offer their employees access to fresh food by creating on-site micro market solutions to meet their needs.
Open shelf snack and breakfast products in Rhode Island corporate dining account.
Clients without on-site cafeterias gained the opportunity to serve their staff with our innovative hybrid foodservice model at a lower cost than maintaining a full-service cafeteria. The types of spaces that are typically converted for market use include former conference rooms, break rooms, or wide hallway spaces.
Our micro markets typically require 500-600 sq. ft. of space, and include a small open-concept production kitchen. Patrons enjoy the ability to see the food being freshly-prepared in the on-site kitchen before its placed into display coolers. Deli-unit space is also designed into our scalable floor plans, to allow for future addition of made-to-order deli service as a client’s needs grow.
Micro Market Service Levels are Scaled to Grow with Your Office Needs
We work with you to customize the level of service that best fits your culture, space and budget.
Below are general examples of our scalable micro market service-level offerings and the number of Café Services professionals typically involved with supporting them.
Examples of Café Services Customizable Micro Market Offerings
Service Level 1:
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- Food is freshly prepared on-site daily and pre-packaged for scan-and-go convenience
- Additional products may include groceries, convenience store sundries, etc.
- Consumers enjoy safe, cashless payment options at self-checkout via unattended kiosks
- Supported by a dedicated Café Services Chef Manager
- Menus are customized to your population’s preferences
- Custom catering services (continental breakfast, upscale holiday parties, outdoor BBQs etc.)
Service Level 2:
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- All Level 1 service benefits PLUS employees may custom preorder and prepay online
- Additional products may include groceries, convenient sundries, cleaning & paper supplies
- Employees enjoy a customized online ordering app, in addition to self-checkout kiosks
- Supported by a dedicated Café Services Chef Manager plus typically one full-time employee
- Custom catering services (continental breakfast, upscale holiday parties, outdoor BBQs etc.)
Service Level 3:
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- All Level 1 & 2 service benefits PLUS on-site, walk-up custom ordering
- Additional items may include dining essentials, groceries, sliced to order deli items, etc.
- Consumers enjoy a secure checkout via a customized online app, in addition to kiosks
- Supported by a dedicated Café Services Chef Manager plus 1-2 full-time employees
- Custom catering services (continental breakfast, upscale holiday parties, outdoor BBQs etc.)
Our Micro Market Customers
Examples of Café Services customers who provide micro market support for their teams include:
National Brand Insurance Company Corporate Headquarters
Team members at the MA home office of a national brand insurance firm enjoy the ability to preorder meals and beverages as-needed, or up to 5 days in advance to proactively plan for meetings and events. The firm’s logo appears on our easy-to-use online menu, as diners review appetizing full-color photos of entrees, side dish options and quality condiments. Staff members may also preorder their breakfast and coffee in advance of each day or week, to be piping hot and ready when they pick it up from a convenient designated pickup location.
Large Regional Furniture Company Corporate Office and Warehouse
Café Services proudly serves the associates of a large regional furniture company’s corporate headquarters. The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated that we pivot our traditional full-service corporate cafeteria and catering services. The result was a seamless transition to the hybrid micro market and preorder, prepay model.
Within the existing cafeteria, we incorporated an expanded, fully-stocked self-service retail micro market of fresh foods-to-go all day, every day. Reach-in coolers are frequently replenished with premium sandwiches, salads, baked goods, beverages and snacks. Associates may also order and pay ahead online from any device using an easy-to-use app customized with the firm’s branding. They receive a text when their order is ready, and pick it up in a convenient designated area.
The firm’s warehouse/distribution center associates also enjoy the benefit of a freshly-stocked 24-hour self-service market and no-contact checkout.
National Logistics Firm Headquarters
Leaders of a national logistics firm turned to Café Services to develop a contactless on-site dining solution for their associates. Staff members may preorder and prepay for their meals, snacks, and beverages from a customized digital ordering app. Food is delivered to a centralized location with designated compartments for employees to retrieve their orders.
Pharmaceutical Firm Headquarters
A national-brand, northeast-based pharmaceutical company entrusts Café Services to provide high quality dining services via two separate micro market cafés, one per building. Employees enjoy access to a hybrid micro market that features fresh food prepared on-site for grab-and-go convenience, as well as easy contactless preorder, prepay foodservice.
Your Best Choice for Corporate Dining Services - Serving the Northeast Since 1993
Since 1993, Cafe Services has earned a reputation as the best choice in corporate dining services.
We attribute this success to our team of local experts who passionately support our clients. In addition to micro markets, our comprehensive corporate dining services include onsite corporate catering; cafeteria design; event management.
We invite you to learn more about our safe, contact-free Contactless Corporate Dining services, as well as in the article, Coronavirus Food Safety: How Café Services is Protecting Corporate Diners & Employees.
Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Our Micro Markets
Yes, we support multiple on-site micro markets for our clients, depending on the layout of their building or campus of buildings. We will partner with you to develop the most cost-effective dining solution that benefits your firm and your employees.
We provide a wide range of micro market support for firms across several mission-critical industries throughout the northeast and mid-Atlantic states.
Café Services has served the Northeast as a leading dining services provider since 1993. We pioneered modern micro market services by incorporating them into our full-service corporate cafeterias. We now offer this unique hybrid dining service model to clients without existing corporate cafeterias, who wish to expand their in-house foodservice offerings to replace banks of vending machines with freshly-prepared and professionally presented offerings.
Yes, we work with you to customize a variety of items for your micro market, based on your population’s preferences and your firm’s goals and budget.
Yes. Café Services pioneered innovative corporate dining services, and we offer full-service catering of fresh food and individually boxed meals from our in-house kitchen. Our experience and in-house catering resources enable us to support any size event. Examples range from continental breakfasts to small executive lunches to upscale holiday parties to outdoor barbeques.
Café Services offers a highly-personalized, fresh food service experience that satisfies your office population’s needs for quality in-house 24-hour retail dining services. We brand our services to mirror your corporate culture, and feature your logo on our digital ordering app. Our hybrid micro market services reach beyond “institutional vending”, to provide the look, feel, experience and environment of popular upscale fast food brands.
Café service chef-managers prepare fresh food on-premise each day, and regularly replenish the micro market to feature the best-selling foods and items your employees request the most. For example, we offer a wide variety of fresh-made items such as premium deli sandwiches, entrée salads, composed salads, soups, and a variety of homemade sides. Beverages include popular brands of coffee and tea, soft drinks, water and energy drinks. Condiments are restaurant-quality brands.
All Café Services micro markets are designed to feature an open production kitchen, with sink and refrigerator; open shelving; reach-in coolers and freezers; self-checkout kiosks; and deli-counter space (for scalable use depending on service level requested).
A typical open concept micro market requires approximately 550-600 square feet of space. This includes space for a small kitchen where food is freshly prepared and packaged for on-site sale. Spaces that are typically converted for micro market use include break rooms, conference rooms, and wide hallway spaces.
A single on-site employee, or Café Services Chef Manager, is needed to continually prepare fresh food for an on-site micro market. Two or more employees could be needed when your service level requires the addition of made-to-order food service for employees to preorder, prepay, and pick up.
All markets are set up with a production kitchen, sink, refrigerated coolers, freezers, open shelving, payment kiosks, and flexible space for the addition of deli service as-needed.
The cost of micro market services varies depending on your company’s population, space, and service needs. Micro markets represent a cost benefit to firms because they keep labor costs down due to fewer staffing requirements than a full-service cafeteria. They are a cost-effective solution to providing fresh, on-site dining services.
Food Services
Variety, local sourcing, custom menus, healthy options, creative chefs – that's corporate dining your way!
Daily catering, special event catering, executive catering, any event, any size, we'll make you shine!
Micro markets provide a variety of fresh food, snacks, and beverages made on-site available 24×7.
We can manage every aspect of your event, small or large, onsite or off, you can count on Café Services.
Our dietitians and chefs provide an all-encompassing approach to health & wellness.
We locally source the freshest fruits and vegetables through partnerships with local farms in every region we're in.
A great addition to your corporate cafeteria providing healthy beverages and snacks for employees on the go.
Our products are made from recycled, compostable and chlorine-free reusable materials.
We offer the professional expertise and resources to support your project from design to implementation.