Commentary
Office fridges: The Wild West of the workplace
A survey of office workers reveals many concerns about the cleanliness and safety of the refrigerators they share with coworkers.
October 24, 2022 by Sam Roberts — Digital Marketing Manager, Connect Vending
We've all heard stories about the office fridge, from the unbelievable to the downright disgusting, but how much of what we hear is actually true? Are our colleagues really all fridge bandits? Does everyone try to avoid their gross office fridge for fear of contracting as-yet-undiscovered diseases?
We surveyed 400 U.K. office workers to find the truth. Respondents answered six multiple choice questions, and consented to the use of demographic data points, including age, income, job role, seniority and location, and here's what we found.
27% have fallen victim to office fridge crime
The rumors are probably true — you may have suspected that your manager has been helping themselves to your other half's fantastic cooking and our results suggest there's more than a one in four chance that it happened. It's unlikely that you'd left it at home, or that you'd misplaced it on the way to work, if we're being honest.
Interestingly, when we asked the same group whether they'd stolen food from their colleagues, only 7% owned up. We've either surveyed only the finest, most upstanding individuals, or people aren't telling us the entire truth. We'll let you decide.
36% have been deterred by ownership labels or warnings
The vigilante fridge fightback is underway. More than a third of the office workers surveyed see offense as the best form of defense — if my name is on it, and everyone knows my name is on it, then we know where we stand. Hands off.
All we'd say on this is that it'll take a lot of Sellotape to stop those fridge bandits. Or so we've heard.
Younger workers are twice as likely to have their food stolen
We have a theory on this one. It's possible that the 18-24 year-olds we asked sent a companywide email rather than labelling their food, and there's no way that it's as effective as an in-fridge, strongly scribbled post-it note. There's something about the handwritten approach that instils more fear.
We aren't bitter about the fact that this generation is more digitally savvy than any generation that has been before. Honest.
62% of low salary workers brown bag to save money
Yes, you read that correctly. It might be that you're one of the better paid in your office and don't have an issue buying your lunch at work every day, but for many of your colleagues right now, it seems that money is tight.
With inflation forecast to peak at 13.2% in October, and with money needed elsewhere in the household, it's no surprise that 71% of households with income lower than £31,772 ($35,660) are having to cut back on the lunch luxuries.
56% found moldy or out-of-date food in the last 3 months
Whose job is it anyway? I'm not the office manager! What do you mean it's not their job to clean up after their gross colleagues, I thought that's what we hired them for!
Whoever is responsible, there are some truly grubby office fridges. Most of us will have seen the odd bottle of curdled milk or some butter from 2002, but we were stunned to read that more than half of the office workers surveyed have been faced with such horrors in just the last three months.
68% are concerned about hygiene and cleanliness
Now, given the statistic we just shared about how much out-of-date food is in the average fridge, this comes as no surprise. At least those who are concerned about the hygiene risk aren't likely to steal from you.
Perhaps this is the bulk of the three quarters who aren't coming near your food. Is a dirty fridge a low-crime fridge? We may be onto something here.
42% worry it won't have enough space
We fully get this one, which is why we have two fridges in our office. Once you've accounted for a 50% condiment to lunch ratio, you're not going to be able to accommodate everyone's meals, especially if your colleague has done their weekly shop and left it here until they go home.
It happens – 27% of respondents said they'd seen full bags of groceries in there in the last three months.
There's quite a lot of data to dissect here, but we hope this gives you some idea of many office fridges serving the employees in today's offices.
