The objective of this article is to show how well-researched food
mapping can lead organizations to connect effectively with their respective
workforce and help reduce food wastage! And who knows, effective and
customized food delivery could even help in increasing the most sought-after
productivity, a pressing concern in most organizations! I must quickly add that
this article is applicable more in the APAC region than in other parts of the
world.
1. Keep observing!
Have you noticed how people eat at their workplace! Your key to saving
food can veritably come from an in-depth observation, without being
judgemental, on how people eat, with their inclination to either juicy, or
spicy, or fast food! While there are people who cannot eat beyond a quantity at
a time, there are also these eaters who eat only once or twice. Those who eat
many times say after every one or two hours are the ones who could be wasting
food. What if organizations had an innovative way of dealing with this
challenge! For instance, suggesting biscuits and other knickknacks in between
major meals, and allowing them to have the quantity they’d not waste during
their major meals? To do anything, meaningful food data is essential
for organizations trying to reduce food wastage. Can information on food habits
collected from the point of entry, with an effective questionnaire from the HR,
help in controlling and mapping food data?
2. Understanding the culture
i.
Accessories
There are people who are not so comfortable with accessories, they do
not know how to hold a fork and a knife and are seen embarrassed playing
catch-catch with food! I understand that they need to be trained into 'dining
etiquette', but while the training is on, can they also be given the comfort of
eating with hands!
ii.
Type of food
When I asked a simple question on whether people enjoy home food or
outside food, very few said outside food! In this context, may I suggest considering the possibilities of bringing home-food to the office! It is for those,
especially the ones who stay alone or are nuclear with both the spouses
working, who cannot cook their lunches on a regular basis. For a Keralite,
kanhi could be so satisfying, as for a north-Indian a simple dal chawal. I know
some courses could be very difficult to be given their due place in the office
menu, but for the ones possible, why not let people eat the way they like, even
if it looked clumsy; after all, every day you are not eating with clients.
iii.
Can food help in increasing
productivity?
I met a friend from the Ivory Coast, with whom I worked only for 25
days. I was troubled to see him not eating at all. I asked him what the problem
was, and here’s what he had to say; I don’t eat because I am health conscious,
so I eat less. However, the truth was revealed when, on a Saturday, I went with
him to Phoenix Market city in Guindy! We ordered chicken roast and a whole lot
of food you can imagine. I found him eating to his heart’s content, shamelessly
from my plate too, and the smile and enthusiasm I saw on his face were
priceless. But that is not the point here, what he said after he ate is! He
said, Supratik, you know, I can work for 19 hours non-stop after this meal!
Seeing him replete and content, my greedy mind thought of food as an in-road to
productivity! Two important things here; one is he had no reason to talk about
work then, but he did, why, and two, he was not talking about himself at that very moment; he was representing or voicing a large section of the working
population!
3. The mom/lady factor
About seven days later, my friend from the Ivory Coast surprised me even
more! He said, Supratik, you know why I liked the food so much the other day?
It’s because the food reminded me of my mom, it was so close!
A fool that I was, all this while I thought he enjoyed outside food!
It’s amazing to know how food could make a person from West Africa feel at home
in a food joint in Chennai! In fact, this is true for most of us; think of the
food you like the most, and in your brain, you are bound to have the physical
imprint of your mom and the food; just do this exercise right now, close your
eyes and think of the food you like the most! If you did that sincerely, you
could even feel the saliva leaking from your tongue. So powerful is the
‘connect’ that everybody, without exception, either thinks of their mother, or
their spouse, or a special lady with that special dish. I am sorry to be
sounding sexist; ladies have a very special place for generations in everyone’s
heart because of this quality, some guys are trying to catch up, but guys you
have a way to go! The point I am trying to make here is to try and see if we
could bring moms or those special ladies into the office kitchen, the quality
of the cooking may not be the same, but it could certainly be close, isn’t it?
4. Bringing home-food in offices
Having said that organizations can really come up with innovative ideas
of bringing home-food to the office; there are people from the north-east who
prefer boiled rice with dollops of butter and one simple boiled egg; people from
the south who prefer plantain, tamarind rice, and those from the north prefer
sagwala meat, paneer just the way they’d have at home, and there are these
people who connect more with outside food. Some Indians, at times, prefer poha
on plane cold water with lime and sugar, some prefer simple puffed rice with
mustard oil and green chilies. I understand that it may not be possible to
accommodate the rich variety of Indian food in offices, but much can be done
despite limitations and constraints; they are more of alterable than
constraints strictly speaking!
Therefore, understanding the culture is as sacrosanct as understanding
the laws of the land.
5. Emulating inclusiveness at the dining table
There was this organization where we used to play a very interesting
game as part of Induction; it was called the dish game I vaguely remember. An
effective ice-breaker, the game would start from one person who would first say
his/her name and then the dish s/he preferred. This is a rich source of
information in finding the road-map to saving food because here’s where the
workforce is speaking their heart out! However, the point I am making here is
not this, but a much larger issue that can emulate inclusiveness in the proper
sense of the term. There was this guy who said his preferred dish was mutton
during the game, but came up to me at the end of the session and told me that
his preferred dish wasn’t mutton, but it was beef; he also told me how scared
he was telling in public about his preferred dish his mom makes best in the
world. Later, I remember going to the restroom and silently praying that I
want to live in a country where people can talk fearlessly about what they like
to eat, without feeling guilty. However, expecting this from a country like
India is not easy; but can we expect this from organizations that have
inclusiveness as their 'raison d’être'? When would the time come in organizations
when their workforce could be seen eating different types of food at the same
table, instead of Brahmanas teaming up and eating together talking openly on
how they hate non-vegetarian food, perhaps even the eaters too, right in the
middle of organizations desperately trying to promote inclusiveness?
6. The thought that wasting food is a crime may not help
Interestingly, in many cultures across the world, wasting food is seen
as a mark of opulence, that if you wasted food and threw them away, cats, dogs, and crows will eat and survive; in turn, they will bless you to become richer. Typically,
people belonging to this faith unconsciously put the food in the litter as a
metaphor to those animals; something they have learned for generations. Even if
you looked at Europe, tomatoes can also be seen as wasted in the famous
festival La Tomatina, and there is also much of wastage in the Oktoberfest! To
cope with these disobedient challenges, the tact would be to create an
atmosphere where the workforce collectively learns how not to waste, and in
case of waste, how to channel that wasted food appropriately! Criminalizing
wasting food may not help in the long run. All in all, we need to be patient,
not restless, determined, and not desperate.
7. An effective mantra (slogan) could help
Get an effective mantra for your workforce, or for the team which is
committed to saving food. I could think of one; “Our employees are all
well-meaning and they do not waste food”; feed this into your thought even if
you see them wasting food right in front of your eyes! The more you think your
employees are indifferent, the more it will come true. Likewise, if you churn
an energizing mantra, it could also work. I am not a competent person to tell
you how it works, but it works flawlessly in every situation, of course in
time!
8. Taking the credit
A vice, a virus that is rampant everywhere, in all walks of life, in the
littlest thing we do, not do! One can easily understand how
it jeopardizes all meaningful efforts with one or two examples.
Imagine a huddle happening in your organization about saving food. Your
senior manager has proposed something; everybody will say, hey this is the
best, we will do it! When the results would fail you, you'd say saving food is
not possible and give it up! But if you probe, do an RCA, you could find, as it
were, that your desperate attempt in trying to grab the credit with a 'win-lose' approach actually stood on the way. Your results would either show that saving
food is not possible or it could even be worse, your papers will show you have
succeeded, but the litters won't.
9. With patience and teamwork, ways are bound to show up
Food is the first love, 'papi pet ka sawal' are sayings which are as old
as time! Count on them, work on them, and you will find your ways, if not in
six months, but with multiple, meaningful and probing trials with patience and
teamwork in several sets of semesters, you will definitely find the way to put
the first love in stomachs that are willing, wanting and waiting to eat.
Bon appétit!
Image credit:
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110703/ttlife.htm
