East Thames Housing Association
photo: Alex Hill

DEGW Global In-house Dining and Catering Research Study, by Antoinette Trimble, DEGW Asia Pacific

In August 2008, a large multinational company based in Australia commissioned DEGW Asia Pacific to undertake a global research study examining the in-house dining and catering provision in a number of benchmark organisations. Commissioned to inform the design of the organisation’s in-house food provision, this tailored research study exemplifies DEGW's ongoing objective to understand the changing workplace, as well as our commitment to sharing this knowledge with our clients.

DEGW approached thirty global organisations to participate in the study, with the criterion that at least 1,000 staff be located in the main headquarters. Half of those approached participated, representing the finance, energy, legal, retail, property, pharmaceutical, and aeronautical sectors.

The study took place over seven weeks, with most of the data gathered via an e-mail survey. DEGW asked organisations to describe in detail current in-house dining and catering provision, including the context and location of the head office, as well as the management approach to catering services and space.

The data collected suggests some links between the location of an organisation and the number of permanently catered seats offered per staff member. The analysis suggests that when the local food offering is limited, a high proportion of in-house dining seats are provided to cater for staff needs. However, this is not a consistent trend as the data also showed that some organisations located in areas with numerous food offerings still provide a relatively high ratio of permanently catered seats per person. In some instances, in-house food provision in corporate environments is being driven by organisational initiatives rather than by the need to supplement local food offerings.

Because of the strong positive response from the initial respondents, the survey remains open to additional participants who fulfill the criteria of having at least 1,000 staff located in their main global headquarters.

If you would like further detail on the study or more information on participating, please contact Antoinette Trimble in Sydney at atrimble@degw.com