Sodexo : Digital upgrades to the traditional workplace restaurant

Over the past year, online ordering of food for takeaway, pick-up and delivery has not just grown in popularity, it has exploded, mainly due to concerns around safety connected with Covid-19. However, while safety remains critical, all the reasons this method of ordering food was popular pre-pandemic remain relevant today. Our guests continue to expect great quality food, personalization, convenience and choice including healthy options.

These expectations from guests, as well as the popularity of online ordering, seem to be here to stay. According to a Sodexo-Harris Interactive survey, only 50% of workers globally say they will visit their cafeteria as often as pre-pandemic, whenever they do return to the office. Of those who will be going to the canteen less often, 30% plan to order food for delivery.

Thanks to our collection of digital and delivery solutions, meals can be enjoyed safely, anytime and anywhere, with the flexibility, menu choice, quality and customization our guest expect.

Increased safety and convenience through mobile ordering and contactless payment

Sodexo's fully personalized meal apps include scan-and-go, pre-order and pre-pay, delivery, reservations and loyalty rewards. These apps allow our guests to buy from restaurants and retail outlets, or to access delivered-in options at the touch of a button. Crucially, they remove shared touchpoints and eliminate physical queuing, limiting exposure and infection risks.

Our digital journey began over 5 years ago when we launched our Bite app, and Covid-19 has escalated the demand and acceptance from our guests which has enabled us to quickly scale and increased deployment to thousands of sites around the world. The Bite app, with mobile order and payment plus Covid-safe pick-up and delivery, ensures our guests can enjoy what they want, when and where they want it. Bite is currently providing a high-quality digital food experience to our guests in the United Kingdom and Ireland, North America, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Twelve by Sodexo provides self-checkout capabilities. Guests can scan the products they would like to buy, pay automatically and then go. No queues, no waiting, no change!

SoHappy is an app available for students as well as adults at work in France. Parents can access information concerning their workplace restaurant as well as their children's school cafeteria. The app includes menus with nutritional and allergen information. It's also possible to manage account balances and invoice payments, reload a badge used for payment, track steps and access exercise tips.

On remote sites in Australia, UK, Canada and Chile, our My Way app is a personalized one-stop app aimed at enhancing the guest experience of living and working in remote locations. Residents can view details of activities happening on site, access menus, log maintenance requests, provide feedback and order ahead from a site's food and retail offering. With a simple one-click in-app payment, residents can collect orders at their convenience, avoiding queues and waiting times.

In China, we partnered with Meican, a digital platform which enables our guests to enjoy contactless pre-ordering of meals across multiple devices from the on-site restaurant as well as off-site high street brands, with a Smart Waiter solution that keeps orders warm for more convenient pick-up while minimizing delivery traffic and wait times.

Employees in many countries around the world can also use their Sodexo meal card issued by Benefits & Rewards Services as payment at their favorite restaurants. Whether they are on site or working remotely, these reloadable digital meal cards can be used across thousands of Sodexo-affiliated merchants worldwide.

Virtual restaurants deliver convenience directly to our guests

Our clients want to provide their employees with the best range of options for their meal experience, irrespective of where they physically work. Our offsite kitchens empower our guests to eat well, wherever they are working.

In Brazil and Singapore, we've partnered with local food tech start-ups such as Deli Express to offer a range of meal options for our clients' employees who are not in the office.

In France, we offer freshly cooked meals delivered every week to homes and officesthroughFoodChéri as well as with Seazon, the country's first 'virtual restaurant'.

In the United Kingdom, our partnership with the Good Eating Company and investment in Fooditude, enables us to provide workplace food delivery solutions.

In the USA, our partnerships with both Nourish and the Good Eating Company provide a wide range of convenient cuisine options for guests working remotely.

In addition to this, Sodexo Meal Cards have more than 70 partnerships with meal delivery platforms in 7 countries including Uber Eats. Holders of the Restaurant Pass card in France also have access to 12,000 restaurants in 300 cities with Deliveroo.

Today's work environment has changed hugely but the range of ways our guests can access their meals has evolved to meet the needs of today's office worker. The digital applications which were once an option for our guests to choose to use are now essential to many, and we've scaled-up our provision of these services to match the needs of our guests.

Find out more about our…Food Services