Office Snacks for Remote and Hybrid Teams

By Claude Burns
4 min read

"We're remote" is the most common reason small teams tell us they don't need office snacks, and about half the time it isn't quite true. They are hybrid. There is an office, people are in it Tuesday through Thursday, and the kitchen is empty because nobody knows how to stock for a team that is only there some days. Here is what actually works for hybrid teams, and the honest answer for fully remote ones.

Short answer: hybrid teams should stock the office for in-office days only, sized to people-days rather than headcount, which usually means one box a month for up to 12 people. Fully remote teams are better served by occasional care packages to homes than by a subscription, and we will tell you when a box is the wrong tool.

Table of Contents

Hybrid teams: size to people-days, not people

The mistake hybrid offices make is stocking like it is 2019. Twenty people on payroll, so they buy for twenty people, and half of it goes stale because only eight are in on any given day. Count people-days instead: people in the office times days they are in. Twenty people, three days a week, is about 260 people-days a month. At one snack per person-day, that is 260 snacks, which is two 150-snack boxes with a little room.

The full sizing walkthrough is in how many snacks a small office actually needs. The hybrid version of the rule is just: count the days.

Make in-office days worth coming in for

Here is the part nobody puts in the RTO memo. People come in for other people, and they stay in for the small stuff that makes the office nicer than their kitchen. A stocked shelf is one of the cheapest versions of that. It also solves a specific hybrid problem: the person who comes in on a quiet Friday and finds an empty kitchen learns not to come in on Fridays.

Two practical moves. First, restock to land on your busiest in-office day, so the box arrives when the most people see it. Second, rotate what is in it every month (you can swap anything before the next box ships) so the Tuesday crowd and the Thursday crowd both find something new.

Fully remote teams: the honest answer

A monthly office box does not make sense if there is no office. We ship 150 snacks to one address, and splitting that across fifteen homes is a job nobody wants. For fully remote teams, the things that actually work are:

  • Onsite weeks. If the team gathers quarterly, a box timed to the week they are together is the right size and the right moment.
  • Care packages. A one-off box to a new hire's home, or to the whole team before a big launch. This is gifting, not stocking, and it is priced like gifting. Our corporate gift guide covers it.
  • A stipend. For everyday snacks at home, a small monthly stipend beats any box. It is not our product, and it is the right answer.

We would rather say that than sell a box to a team with no shelf to put it on. A subscription that gets cancelled in month two helps nobody.

Teams split across two small offices

Common at 20 to 40 people: a main office and a second city. Treat them as two separate boxes with two separate mixes. The temptation is to order one big shipment and forward half, which costs more in time than it saves in money. Two Essentials boxes ($199 each) to two addresses is simpler than one Deluxe box and a shipping label.

Quick answers

How do you handle snacks for a hybrid team? Size to people-days (people times in-office days), stock the office only, and time delivery to your busiest day.

Can a snack subscription ship to employees' homes? Ours ships to one address per box. For homes, a one-off gift box or a stipend works better than a subscription.

What if only a few people come in? A 150-snack box covers about 150 people-days. Five people in three days a week use it in about two months, which is fine; the snacks keep.

Do you offer smaller boxes for tiny hybrid teams? Every box is 150 snacks. Small teams stretch one box across two months rather than buying a smaller one.