What Redesigning a Food Environment for 1,200 Employees Taught Me

The most influential wellbeing strategy in your organisation probably isn’t your wellbeing strategy.

It’s your food environment.

Three times a day, it shapes hundreds of decisions. It influences energy, concentration, collaboration, mood and performance—often without anyone consciously recognising it. Yet in many organisations, food is still viewed as a catering function rather than a strategic business asset.

As organisations rethink employee experience, workplace culture and the future of work, I believe it’s time we changed that.

Because the conversation around workplace wellbeing has become heavily focused on changing people.

How do we encourage employees to eat better? Move more? Sleep well? Build healthier habits?

They’re important questions, but I’ve become far more interested in a different one.

How do we design environments where better choices become the natural choice?

Behaviour doesn’t happen in isolation. Every decision we make is influenced by what surrounds us—what’s visible, what’s accessible, what’s convenient and what’s considered normal. Behavioural scientists describe this as choice architecture: the intentional design of environments that influence decisions without removing choice.

When we get that environment right, healthier behaviours become easier—not because people suddenly have more willpower, but because the system is working with them instead of against them.

That belief was reinforced during one of the most defining projects of my career.

As Food and Wellness Strategist for Enrich by KSG, I had the opportunity to help reimagine what workplace dining could become. Enrich wasn’t created as another healthy eating campaign or corporate wellness initiative. It was built around a simple but ambitious idea: that food has the power to transform how people feel, think and perform throughout the working day.

Serving more than 1,200 employees every day, we spent two years redesigning the workplace food environment from the ground up. Working alongside an exceptional multidisciplinary team of chefs, nutritionists, food developers and operational specialists, we developed more than 450 flavour-led, nutrient-dense recipes, introduced personalised meal plans, created a digital wellbeing platform and embedded nutrition education into the everyday employee experience.

The programme extended far beyond the plate. Built around five interconnected pillars—nutrition, hydration, movement, sleep and mindfulness—it recognised that wellbeing isn’t driven by one behaviour in isolation. Human performance is shaped by multiple factors working together, and the workplace has a unique opportunity to influence many of them.

But what made Enrich different wasn’t simply the recipes or the nutritional guidance.

It was the philosophy behind it.

Rather than asking employees to change their behaviour, we focused on redesigning the environment around them. Every menu, every recipe, every food station and every point of choice was intentionally designed to make nourishing food more visible, more accessible and more desirable.

The healthier choice became the easier choice.

Every dish was developed to deliver exceptional flavour alongside nutritional quality, using whole ingredients, balanced macronutrients and recipes designed around satiety, sustained energy and cognitive performance. The goal wasn’t restriction. It was nourishment that helped people perform at their best—whether they were leading meetings, solving complex problems, collaborating with colleagues or simply getting through a demanding afternoon.

The biggest lesson wasn’t that people needed more nutritional advice.

It was that they needed an environment intentionally designed to help them succeed.

When nourishing meals became the most visible and accessible option, people naturally chose them.

When recipes were designed to support satiety rather than restriction, afternoon energy became more consistent.

When food delivered both exceptional flavour and nutritional value, healthy eating stopped feeling like a compromise.

We weren’t changing behaviour.

We were redesigning the environment that shaped it.

That experience fundamentally changed how I think about workplace wellbeing.

Today, organisations invest heavily in leadership development, workplace design, technology and employee engagement to improve performance. Yet many overlook one of the few touchpoints every employee experiences every single day: food.