Business & Politics

We've heard of many university cafeterias featuring ethnic and vegetarian dishes, made with locally produced and/or organic ingredients. With newly hired grads bringing this experience with them into the job market, it only makes sense that successful and growing corporations would follow suit. Via the San Francisco Chronicle:- "If Cafe 150 had opened in Berkeley or along Valencia Street in San Francisco's Mission District, it would be seen as another expression of our eclectic, edgy and politically entwined food scene. But Cafe 150 is located in Mountain View on the high-tech campus of Internet giant Google. It's the newest and bravest frontier of fine dining, where the Bay Area culinary trinity of sustainable/local/organic has passed to the corporate cafeteria". And it looks like there might be a positive productivity benefit from sustainable eats, with driving away for lunch a forgone habit. "We serve 125 percent of the population," says Dickman [Food Services Director], explaining that guests and visitors account for a number higher than 100 percent". How will this translate to the rest of corporate America? Very slowly, mainly with the executive suite we'd guess . The talent base and supply chains aren't ready for scale up. Perhaps the most difficult chore is overcoming the traditional role of the corporate cafeteria: usually a steam table affair where executives mingle only briefly under pressure from Human Resources to sit with the "folks." The truth is that really good food in the corporate world is a "perk.". Turning that on end the way Google has done is just not likely to happen elsewhere. The whole article is a fun read, including some terrific looking recipes.