One Standard, Every Site: The Same Quality on the Plant Floor and in the Office

A multi-site employer can end up with a different food service provider in every building without ever deciding to. One site adds a cafe. Another signs a vending contract. A third brings in coffee service. No one owns the whole, and no one is accountable for what the experience adds up to.

That was the situation at an enterprise manufacturer with plants and commercial offices across the United States and Canada. Cafes, vending, coffee service, and 24/7 markets ran under separate providers across the portfolio, with no single partner accountable for the guest experience. Manufacturing sites and offices are also very different to serve. An office program looks familiar. A plant floor does not: breaks can be short, the floor can be too big to cross and get back in time, and many buildings have no full kitchen at all, so hot, fresh food has rarely been the default. What the client needed was equity of hospitality experience across its workforce, the same quality whether someone clocked in at a desk or on the line. And no one could say, with real data, how many employees the program was reaching.

One partner, one standard

Workplace Hospitality consolidated all of it into a single point of accountability. Today the client has one partner for anything that touches workplace experience, from refilling a coffee station in a distribution center to design and procurement support on new and renovated facilities. That kind of trust is earned slowly. The team spent close to a year working alongside the client to shape a shared vision before the contract was awarded, and stayed close to the people making the decisions as the program grew.

“We are in the people business. There just happens to be a lot of food and coffee around it.”

- Jason Schweitzer, Vice President of Operations, Aramark Workplace Hospitality

The whole approach came down to one promise: the food would be good, and the quality would be the same for everyone, whatever their job, their shift, or their building. Everything else could flex. How the food was served, where, and how it reached people changed from site to site, because it had to. Someone on the plant floor might have a short break, no screen to place a mobile order, no table to sit at, and a long walk to reach food. Someone in the offices has very different conditions and pressures to navigate. Different service models with the same promise underneath them. The same high-quality ingredients served at headquarters are the same ingredients served in the plants. No compromises.

“Everybody everywhere deserves to have a quality meal made for them by somebody who cares, who took pride in what they were doing.”

- Jason Schweitzer, Vice President of Operations, Aramark Workplace Hospitality

That promise is not only about the food. Regional leaders train the teams on one core ideal of the hospitality world: treat every guest interaction as the most important thing happening to that person that day.

Meeting people where they are

On the plant floor, keeping that promise meant rethinking the basics. Hot, fresh food has rarely been the default in manufacturing anywhere. The team set out to change that, providing access to hot, fresh food made on site.

Some plants are simply too big to cross on a short break. So the team brought the kitchen to the floor. Forty-foot trailers, built out as full modular kitchens, now sit inside the plants. Five are running across various locations, with four more on the way. For people used to grabbing whatever they could in the short time they had, a hot meal made fresh on the floor is convenient.

A dedicated project manager runs several major renovations across the portfolio, with four more planned for next year, and a recently reopened plant now matches the look, feel, and hospitality of the commercial offices.

Participation went up, and stayed up

The team also changed how the program is judged. Participation is the clearest read on whether an amenity is providing value, but only if it is measured honestly. The account moved away from estimated populations to live badge data and transaction counts. Feedback got the same treatment, with one simple survey replacing an older tool that guests used to give up on halfway through.

Measured that way, participation runs well above the benchmark at every site in the portfolio. The newest headquarters, not yet at full occupancy, is already posting some of the highest participation the team has seen in this category. On the plant floor, where a strong result was historically a fraction of what a commercial cafe posts, participation now clears the bar those commercial cafes used to aim for. As it has climbed, the account has exceeded targets year over year.