Remember the days when you could just order a few pizzas for the company get-together and everyone was happy? Sigh. Anyone in charge of organizing food orders for a company knows the must-have item now on any menu needs to be antacids—for themselves. There is always someone on a trendy diet, or lactose or gluten intolerant, diabetic, vegetarian, vegan, or with a cultural or religious aversion to certain foods. What used to be a simple order has turned into a logistical nightmare. Pass the Alka-Seltzer please.
“One place has banned tuna salad sandwiches because someone in the office is allergic to fish. Another one has banned peanut butter for the same reason. If you want to eat a PB and J or a tuna salad sandwich, you have to go out to your car to do it,” says one NH executive, who wished to remain anonymous.
This executive recalls her own experience of being responsible for organizing food for weekly events at a former employer with more than 140 employees. “It is extremely difficult to come up with something different 50-plus weeks out of the year that will please everyone,” says the executive, who responded to a request for stories posted on behalf of Business NH Magazine on NHLABORNET, an Internet discussion group for human resource professionals in NH. “Just when I thought I had a handle on the medical dietary restrictions, a religious or cultural restriction would pop up.”
While she usually handled luncheons for international visitors, she remembers an instance when a colleague placed the food order. “Fortunately I walked in the door about 20 minutes before lunch and just about fainted. They had ordered a meat and cheese tray for sandwiches and the restaurant curled up sliced ham and arranged it over a large ceramic pig, decoratively arranging cheese around the pigs feet and interwoven with the ham slices. Did I mention this was a group from Israel? All kosher—no pork, no meat and cheese on the same tray. I was disassembling the pig and calling the restaurant to get a kosher luncheon while trying to keep the guests away from the food set up,” she says.
As trying as it has become, food still plays a big part in corporate cultures. And while satisfying everyone’s dietary restrictions can be downright annoying, it can also be important as some food allergies can be deadly or at the very least can make it uncomfortable to stay at work if you pop a disagreeable morsel.
Cherie Roberts, catering director at Green House Catering in Nashua, has seen pretty much every specialty request there is from corporate clients. “We’ve had requests for dietary restrictions— a couple of people can’t eat anything raw, another has a citrus issue, a few vegans, vegetarians and gluten free. And that was one party,” she says.
Special requests, even among a group, are no reason to get stressed out, she says. Most of the time they can be accommodated with simple substitutions that can be enjoyed by the entire group so no one feels singled out at mealtime.
For example, breads can be made gluten-free, though usually for a fee adjustment as they are more expensive to make, she says. “If a group orders a seared sal-mon, we can replace cream sauce and put it over sautéed bok choy greens garnished with cucumber wasabi sauce,” Roberts offers as another example.
The most common corporate requests are for vegetarian and gluten-free options. “Both are easy to accommodate. We have great vegetarian items that are seasoned nicely so even meat eaters enjoy. We try to approach every menu as an inclusive offer that everyone can enjoy,” she says. Food signs help to easily direct people to dishes they might want to avoid due to food restrictions, she adds. “We try to make people feel comfortable with these things and make it inclusive instead of singling out.”
If someone has a highly restrictive diet that cannot have cross contamination from other food, Roberts will prepare an individually prepared and wrapped simple item, such as plain chicken.
“If they really have life threatening allergies, they will typically bring their own food,” she says. Personal responsibility does come into play. Another executive on NHLABORNET is gluten-free, a dietary restriction that can be challenging when at networking events. “I actually BYOB to breakfast events (Bring Your Own Bars) so I can enjoy fruit and coffee with guests but have something more sustainable to enjoy. Or, I eat in advance,” she says. “In the end, I look at is as it’s my responsibility to know what I can or can’t eat, so it requires planning ahead."
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