Free Lunch Everyday at Google!

By Veron | Posted in Food
Tags #Web

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…and breakfast. And dinner too. And all the snacks in between meals. To increase productivity and time spent at the workplace, google provides free meals for all its employees.

Mind you, this isn’t just some shoddily prepared food simply because it’s free and has to cater to 10,000 workers. This is top-notch organic and hormone-free stuff prepared by professional chefs at 11 restaurants spanning across google’s mountain view campus.

With all the sushi, foie gras, tacos, salad bars and candy stations, google employees certainly have it good! After all, they do deserve it for creating some of the best products and services in the online world.

Lunch at Google

But still, wouldn’t this induce jealousy in anyone?

Pizza at Google

Brett lider, a google employee, has posted dozens of pictures of the food he enjoys at google. All the pictures you see here have been taken by him.

Whisky tasting at Google

It’s not just food! There’s whisky tasting as well! Whisky at work!

Left: Salad on a stick, Right: Mineral water

Of course, things have to be lots more innovative at google, food included. On the left you see a pipette, plus a little bit of cheese and a little chunk of tomato on a stick. The pipette releases a little salad cream when squeezed. How neat!

The bottle on the right looks like something that would fit right into my toiletries pouch. It is, in fact, mineral water! All the way from norway, no less. That’s quite possibly the prettiest mineral water bottle I’ve ever seen!

Lunch at Google

Besides the 11 restaurants, there are also 44 food stations in between work areas. Each one has its own espresso machine, mineral water, vitamin water (!!!), juices and — the best part — scoop-your-own-bins filled with candy treats ranging from gummi bears to chocolate bars!

Snacks at Google

Sure, at the end of the day it’s all about increasing productivity. But pampering employees and making them feel appreciated go a long way. Workers that are treated well and feel good at their work environment are happy, loyal and hard workers (possibly fat too, in this case). It probably explains why google is so successful at churning out innovative and user-friendly services all the time.

Three cheers and two thumbs up for google!

External links

Flickr: Food Photo Blog of Brett Lider, a Google employee

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About the Author

Veron Ang is the founder and chief editor of Sparklette. She lives in Singapore and has dined and traveled across the world. She also runs Sparklette Studio, a web design and development firm. If you'd like to connect with her, head on over to the contact page or follow her personal updates on Twitter: @VeronSG.

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30 responses

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creme
January 28

wahh.. im drooling!!
if only companies in sg are that generous too!
Reply
Veron
January 28

Maybe only in our dreams! Or 1000 years later when things would be very very different from what they are now.
Reply
Fenton
January 28

No wonder why, Google was voted the best company to work at for the year 2006. Besides, having extravaganza food, their employees still could play around like little kids within the compound!
Too bad no other companies in the world follow Google’s policy. The pockets of other employers are not as deep as Google.
Reply
Veron
January 28

Oh yeah. They spend an estimated USD10 to provide free meals for each employee in one day. That’s USD100,000 for 10,000 employees everyday! Not too many companies can afford to do that.
Reply
zaijian
January 28

wow… this actually brings a tear to my eye…
i think im going to go cry…. right after i fix myself a huge sandwich hehe
Reply
iloveyongsi
January 28

good gracious. how cool is that. is there a google branch in Singapore? ;p
Reply
chillycraps
January 28

argh! so what my hacker friend said was true!
When I was working at Hewlett Packard I was buying lunch box everyday and eating in front of my computer in my cubicle lor!!
Reply
Veron
January 28

Hey zaijian,
LOL you are hilarious!
Reply
Veron
January 28

Hey iloveyongsi,
I think they do! Oh what would I give to work at Google! But I have a feeling the free lunch policy wouldn’t apply in its Singapore office.
Reply
Veron
January 28

Hey chillycraps,
Okay one thing at a time. You have a HACKER friend??
Reply
mervkwok
January 28

jealous? naahhh.. Considering how hard these guys work, they better get a good free meal haha
Reply
pkchukiss
January 28

Gee, does that mean that they are going to look like foie gras themselves within a few years of their employment? I admit that I would be the first to tip the scales: I mean, with that much food, how can anyone RESIST?!
Reply
Veron
January 28

Hey merv,
Good point!
Reply
Veron
January 28

Hey pkchukiss,
Gee, that foie gras imagery sure doesn’t seem too pretty!
Reply
chillycraps
January 28

hi Veron,
he works in an auditing firm. Anyway you know the real meaning of hacking isn’t negative, right~? =)
Reply
Veron
January 28

I know there are both black and white hackers. And I’m gonna be royally pissed if somebody hacked into my site and replaced all my content with huge text in block letters. (But then again, why would anyone do that?)
Reply
tinkertailor
January 28

google is pretty enlightened – 10 bucks per day, or about $200 more a month for each employee is nothing if it leads to high morale and better productivity and low turnover and ensures top talent coming in. oh they have free laundry and massages etc too. before long they’ll be providing free girlfriends to those google nerds.
Reply
nay min thu
January 28

now, i know how they got their endless flow of creative juices..
=)
Reply
DK
January 28

I’m willing to live and work in USA if google employs me. :D
Reply
Min
January 29

Haha, wow, I’m so jealous! That food looks amazing…and makes me want to go work at Google. If only I was good with computers…T_T
Voss water! Yeah, it’s pretty popular in the States too – my friends once bought it for their whole class…which is pretty expensive, and now that they’ve drank all the water, they put cheap stuff in it like Arizona Tea and stuff…^__^;;
Reply