Nesta Study Report-Sep 29

Working Paper: Cartogram of Commensal Eating June 2016

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Cartogram of Commensal Eating: Visualising the Sociality of Eating in Workplace

Rosa Grossman

MA Materials Anthropology & Design

University College London

Hilary Prosser



Tiffany Lee



Sakti Ramadhan



Abstract

To provide prompts to think about the sociality of eating and wellbeing at workplaces, we researched lunchtime eating behaviour among working people, as well as the wishes for and obstacles in the future of commensality. ‘The Cartogram of Commensality’ is a scenario game based from the gathered information and analysis, as a design probe that enables us to speculate possible futures of eating together during lunchtime at work. One key conclusion that informed the construction of this cartogram is the notion of the 'scalable sociality' (Miller 2016) in commensal eating. The flexibility in crafting collective lunchtime extends not only to its physical elements, but also social configurations. This, we suggest, happens in dialogue with the consensus in choosing the food, environment, and time spent eating. Furthermore, the sympathy or antipathy for the company along with the company culture affect the desire of socialising during work time, thus also the possibility for eating together.

Introduction

Introduction

This writing serves as a complement to a research commissioned by Nesta that

aims to review the existing facts and approaches mainly from employers and policy


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makers in regards to communal eating, and to provide prompts to think about the

sociality of it in the future. Investing in researches that go beyond social innovation,

Nesta prompted this query by probing on the idea of food in the future and how it

relates to people.

Throughout history, eating has always been social, or at least practiced with

association to social contexts. There is a tendency in us to gather around, produce,

and share our meal with others. Classic ethnographic accounts unearthed numerous

cultural implications in meals, from transaction rules in food procurement to ritualistic

aspects, yet Richards (2004[1932]) reminded us not to overlook its primal

manifestation: shared eating is a ‘social fact’. It establishes bonds by compromising

the selfishness of nourishing oneself, reconciles collective identities, and as Simmel

(1961) asserted, shared food “satisfies a need for interaction by a union with others,

where conviviality establishes and reinforces social ties” (Sobal & Nelson 2003:181).

Commensality—originating from Latin words com- ‘together’ and mensa ‘table’—then

emerged as a concept to frame this very idea of sharing a table to eat and interact

(Sobal 2000) in various disciplines.

What is observable from our present time, however, is the growing perception of

‘structural individualism’ (Sobal & Nelson 2003) that seeped contagiously through the

post-industrial societies, making ways for both individualisation and privatisation of

eating (Fischler 2011). The promulgation of time as an irreversible commodity

lessened the duration spent for preparing and enjoying meals, and not counting the

social interaction that follows. This resulted in the prevalence of nonritualistic solitary

eating. Among all, workplaces, at which modern humans spend a large amount of their

waking hours, are where such phenomenon manifests predominantly. In many present


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time workplaces, this is worsened by the reprehensible perception on indulging in

meals as being idle. A feature on The New York Times Magazine about the

increasingly ubiquitous phenomenon of ‘desktop dining’ estimated 62% of American

professionals prefer to choose eating alone to “multitask better”1. One key explanation

lies behind the shifting work culture itself. In preceding societies, the fact that people

work in groups allowed a synchronisation of labour, which in turn gave way to

systematic breaks for nourishment. Today, more and more specialised jobs require

less amount of physical work, and thus smaller room for collective synchrony in

working time, even when more than one person is doing similar task. Even in

concentrated work arrangements, where a large number of workers share the same

productive space, there are intricate tensions between what is seen as private and

public, or constructive and unproductive. Thus, when contrasting this concern with the

notion of wellbeing in workplaces, we identified at least two key issues that emerge

from this clash between solitary and communal eating in workplace. First, health and

nutritional problems, as a result from both inconsistent eating habits and failure in

attending to nutritional intake among professional workers, and second, the issue of

social and organisational development related to productivity and social as well

psychological wellbeing.

Quite fittingly, as a governmental charitable agency focusing on advancements in

innovation and policy, Nesta provided the authors with the necessary framework to

proceed with this research, and later served as one of the observed workplace

‘archetypes’. Our research underwent several iterative phases initially concentrating

at the materiality of food. However, it became apparent from our preliminary

1 See http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/failure-to-lunch.html, last accessed 26 May 2016.


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ethnographies that the issues were far more to do with the social and physical

environment rather than the presented food itself. Thus some of the questions

formulated are. how are people going to eat their food in communal settings: together

or apart? What are the barriers that influence the decision? How are the relationships

between humans, things, and ultimately the social and institutional environment play

a role in it? Firstly, we will be specifically looking at how institutional settings play an

important part in progressing this shift. For the sake of disambiguation, the choice for

this relevantly brown terming is by all means meant to include also non-work settings,

such as schools and universities. The limited duration of this project unfortunately

forced us to focus on professional environments; however, the extensive nature of this

sociocultural enquiry is expected to augment the benefits for policy makers and

institutions in thinking about social configuration in eating together beyond what is

observed in this research.

Commensality in Workplaces

In his historical and critical assessment of the sociality in eating, Fischler (2011)

chronicled the inevitability of privatisation of human lives in the past century and its

effects on food and eating. Studies conducted in no more than two decades ago

showed that solitary eating was socially depreciated even in developed countries, and

relevantly, the image of an ideal meal would always require the presence of other

people (Sobal & Jeffery 2003; Rodrigues and Almeida 1996). Yet today’s proliferation

of individualised dietary, for instance, encourages people to reflect more on each

personal intake and metabolic system and craft their eating habits out of it.


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Furthermore, food restrictions, preferences, and allergies contribute also to the loss of

collective eating identities shared in traditional communal meals (Sobal & Nelson

2003).

Health and Physical Wellbeing

Studies mapping the efforts in enhancing healthy lifestyle in workplaces are done

across intersecting disciplines. Investigating the business of regulated and subsidised

food provision in workplaces in Finland, Raulio et al. (2010) mentioned the

improvement of nutritional intake among workers in their conclusion. Policies imposed

by the government are also instrumental in this undertaking, as it urges employers to

comply with the national dietary recommendations. Subsidised worksite canteens

have grown to become significant in Finnish workspaces in the recent years (Raulio,

Roos & Prattala (2012). In the UK, as observed by Pridgeon and Whitehead (2013),

although similar recommendation was also published by the National Institute for

Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the unavailability of reasonably priced food

within workplaces deterred the staff from adhering to such guidance. Thus, the two

authors concluded, cost and choice of food became one of the barriers for workers to

achieve healthy eating aside from organisational structure, personal influences, and

food message (p. 93). This in turn is linked directly to organisational development:

Jensen (2011) estimated 1%-2% labour productivity is improved along with effective

organisational intervention in dietary and nutritional intake. A study conducted by

Kniffin et al. (2015) on the effect of organised lunches among firefighters suggested

that support for worksite eating, aside from facilitating collaborations and increasing

productivity, encourages also healthy eating.


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Sociality in Shared Meals

The restless wage earners can be very susceptible to devaluating the affairs of

preparing consuming meals during work time. The ease in obtaining prepared meals

and nourishment through vending machines and fast food restaurants instead of

regulated provision in workplaces (e.g. canteen or cafeteria) contributes much to

solitary eating, which in turn connects to the problematic desktop dining. In most cases

in workplaces, solitary eating is merely an unintentional consequence: it is a nuisance

to merge everyone’s time and nutritional requirements to prepare a feast on the table

every day. While flexible breaks in offices mean employees are not obliged to follow

anyone’s routine and give them freedom to rest from whatever work they are

engrossing themselves in and eat at any convenient time, those also endorse, rather

lamentably, the option to skip lunchtime altogether.

The surrounding environment, both social and physical, is found to be paramount. As

previously mentioned in our proposition, corporate culture, whether enacted as

regulations or organically constructed, shapes employers individually and communally.

The collective ‘moods’ of the company projected in the social environment affects

choices and possibilities in social interaction. On the other hand, worksite canteens,

cafeterias, or dining rooms in present time are also moving from the practical intention

of labor management (e.g. in industrial factories) to providing wellbeing and

collaboration (Kniffin et al. 2015). These ‘neutral spaces’, where employees take time

off their stressful roles, encourage informal interactions that build bonds (Ashforth et

al. 2007; Rothbard, Philips and Dumas 2005). Even the provision of water coolers at

companies with limited spaces can have social benefits: a study by Fayard and Weeks


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(2007) suggested that the fragments of comfort offered from the facility can simulate

smaller effects gained from eating spaces. Employer-sponsored sustenance is

particularly flourishing within companies dealing with technology and innovation.

Gavetti and Rifkin (2007) associated the trend with the tendency in such companies

to appear as efficient and forward-looking, and thus cafeterias were placed to provide

frugal commensality.

Yet as stated before, eating outside of working environments evidently appear to be

the principal choice for many scenarios due to the lack of space and food provision.

Taking breaks in to-go restaurants or coffee-shops also substitutes the stress

associated with physical environments such as the cubicles (Pina e Cunha, Cabral-

Cardoso, Clegg 2008). This is also the case with environments with limited attention

to employees’ wellbeing or fellowship. More often than not, eating apart from work

colleagues has additionally resulted from work-related tasks, such as obligations in

business lunches or in jobs that require transit. This is true in communal purposes as

well, where it can also work as a habit that ties social knots. Thus, while typically

unstructured, eating outside will be reserved as an aspect of the whole eating culture

in this study. Finally, feasts and occasional gatherings may also be present in the

nexus of worksite commensality. Examining the politics in liminality, i.e. the social

space ‘betwixt and between the original positions arrayed’ (Turner 1997), Sturdy,

Schwarz and Spicer (2006) highlighted the use of the ‘multi-structured layer’ in office

parties and gatherings to create union outside the known and routinised environment.

Methodology


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During the course of 2 months, we conducted qualitative research by means of

individual and semistructured group interviews and observations at two separate

workplaces in the United Kingdom. All of the informants were recruited to primarily

engage in structured working hours and share their space with colleagues. For the

purposes of this study, we also distinguished the insights from both professional

employees and employers.

The ethnography intends to include group interviews as a complement, not as

an opposition to individual interviews: this method reveals how thinking about

commensality are compromised constantly. This puts us also in a framework to

understand ‘third space’, i.e. the contested space between what is regarded private

and public (Smith 1999), in both commensality as well as the interview occasions when

people talked about it in the presence of other people they frequently share their food

with.

Case Study 1: Grace & Sarah

Grace, a 27-year-old Korean, works in a boutique medical research firm with a small

office and multiple branches around the world in Seoul. She has coworkers, but often

works on projects with overseas branches and, as a result, has a very different

schedule from her colleagues. She used to love socialising at lunch, but after moving

jobs, even though she gets along with her new colleagues, she no longer desires to

eat with them. She goes through phases of being very health conscious and enjoys

exploring the city she is in for different cuisines and good food.

Sarah, 28, is a Korean-American advertising director working in a large media agency

in New York. She went from a small boutique firm to a large corporate, but has always


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had very similar lunch hour patterns, regardless of where she works. Her workplace

has a ‘kitchen’ with free snacks, drinks, and alcoholic drinks provided on every floor.

After having spoken to two very different perspectives, neither of them talked much

about what the foods were, and spent much of the time explaining the office

environment they were in and the company culture. This was in contrast with how

these candidates described themselves as enthusiastic about food and eating. Thus,

in regards of eating between work routines, their choices are affected much more by

the company around them and they accepted lunch to be more of a ‘practical’ fueling

period in the day rather a meal they can really indulge themselves in. Grace

specifically highlighted the simplicity in solitary eating:

“I feel like at times, [eating together] adds to the workload and continues to stress me

out while I want to be taking a break, or it will be too time-consuming.”

Regretting the fact that her work environment does not provide enough space for

communal eating, Grace only eats lunch with her colleagues “less than once a week.”

This resulted in her reluctance to spending more time with them after or outside work

hours where job-related pressures are often expected to be minimal. Sarah’s

impression of lunchtime at her workplace, on the contrary, was predominantly positive:

she enjoyed the communal seating provided and spent a good amount of time in the

space not only to eat, but also work and socialise.

Case Study 2: Petra & Rosa


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Petra is British, currently in her late 50s, self-employed and spends time at different

TV studios but has had a long experience in eating with colleagues in her previous

jobs. Prior to her TV work, Petra worked as a newspaper journalist, and, being very

concerned about eating well, she grows her own produce and buys organic, seasonal

produce at local shops. She then compared those past impressions with the lunch she

has once a week at college where she is currently studying in a master’s programme.

Petra was not necessarily proactive when it comes to socialising, but enthusiastic

about her work and studies and enjoys eating with colleagues and fellow students

where discussion is about work and other shared interests and never touches on

personal or family issues, e.g. talking about artwork with her fellow students or about

projects with work colleagues. She embraces social ‘barriers’ not as a limitation, but

as a present condition that categorizes her social contacts: “I really liked these people

but I know nothing about any of their personal lives.”

Reflecting on company culture in television production and newspaper journalism in

an earlier era, Petra considered the loss of the obligatory and communal lunch break

as part of a wider cultural change:

“At work in the 80s everyone went down to the pub or the wine bar and everyone drank,

it was virtually mandatory, a one-and-a-half-hour lunch time was usual. You couldn’t

say you didn’t drink and everyone went back plastered. And we had luncheon

vouchers, everyone had vouchers which you could spend in any café or restaurant so

we were always going out to eat.”


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Rosa, 25, is a British educational support worker who works at two different locations:

one of them has a dedicated area for staff relaxation, where the atmosphere is

collegiate and friendly. In a sense, Rosa explained, this space is highly feminised and

conversation is mainly personal. Over lunch hour the talk is a lot about food, diets and

health, and people are generally interested in food. At the other sites there are no

spaces big enough for people to congregate. People tend to eat at their desks and the

difference in atmosphere is marked. There is a clear segregation according to types

of staff—and a sense that one sector looks down on another, “a sense of brewing

resentment and meanness about these environments”. Thus she compartmentalised

the different social environments in her two jobs (she at times used the words ‘nice’

and ‘miserable’ to address those correspondingly) according to both the ‘mood’ and

the structural arrangements of the worksite:

“Lunch is staggered so I spend the time in the staff lounge, some of us are eating,

others not, it’s nice to be together with these colleagues. At the other places the staff

are more segregated and I don’t really want to spend more time with them.”

Only occasionally her “miserable” workplace resorted to celebratory moments

such as birthdays or potlucks to have communal eating. One time, her colleague

brought in salmon and other picnic assortments which was “really exciting and [it]

made everyone a lot friendlier.” However, as there were no particular involvements

from the employers, Rosa felt that it would be hard to recreate the moment as a way

to promote sociability.


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Case Study 3: Aidil and Aisha

Aidil, 27, works in a multinational advertising agency in Paris, while 25-year-old Aisha,

currently a postgraduate student in London, has previously worked as a designer

assistant in a footwear brand. Both are Indonesian.

Aidil enjoys most of his lunchtime in a subsidised cafeteria inside his office building.

Having to work mostly in an isolated space where he communicates with other

coworkers only by means of digital devices, he regarded the need to socialise as

indispensable. There was ample space in the cafeteria, where seats can be adjusted

to accommodate from as small as two persons to bigger groups at long communal

tables. Yet what he was noticing was also the connection between his longer break

hours—he was, in sum, entitled to two hours of lunchtime and flexible hours—and the

general opinion on eating in his city:

“…congregating and enjoying long lunchtime is not only the corporate policy here. It’s

engrained in the culture and etched in every person’s psyche that people no longer

question their unique privilege and even surprised at the notion that people in other

cultures don’t enjoy the same luxury.”

Aisha often found her personal eating behaviour different when it comes to commensal

scenarios; even more in a professional setting where things run more structured and

rigid. On sharing food, for instance, while it is a common thing to do in a shared dining

table back at home in Indonesia, Aisha thought that it is 'hard to imagine to do the

same thing here in England', except for maybe a potluck session. Thus for her, plates

and other vessels work as private barriers of each persons' portion of food. She also


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pointed out how the acoustics of a place affect the whole experience of eating together.

Being aware of her talkative nature, she loves to use such occasions to discuss things

unrelated to work.

Case Study 4: Emilia and Marina

Emilia, in her mid 50s, is Brazilian who works as the president of a shopping centre

administration company in Brazil. Emilia always eats her lunch with the same

colleagues, who are all managers at the company. Predominantly, this is because she

and the managers go for lunch at a much later time than the other sectors of the firm,

so their timetable is not compatible; secondly because, during lunchtime, they

regularly talk about business matters that cannot be discussed amongst other sectors.

Because of the latter situation, she never socialises with her colleagues outside

working contexts, and has no desire to do so.

Her company has a well-structured canteen, yet although the majority of the

company’s employees eat at the canteen, she never does so. She goes to the same

restaurant most of the time, that is very close to her office and has “simple and well-

made food” in a buffet style, so each person makes his/her own plate with the sort and

amount of food they want to eat. They do share a dessert at the end of the meal. For

Emilia, dessert is an ideal food to share: it is about indulgence, not hunger, and serves

as a “ritual thing which marks the end of the lunch”.

Emilia also put an emphasis on how she used to have the opportunity to indulge more

in their lunch:


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“15 years ago, people used to go home for lunch and eat with their families, that would

be the ideal lunchtime for me, but it has become impossible because of time issues.”

Marina, 34, works in a fashion retail company in London as a buyer. Her workplace is

relatively small with modest facilities and no place to eat, so people would only go to

the pantry to prepare their food and go back to their desks to eat:

“People feel embarrassed to prepare their food right by someone who is working,

because it’s noisy and it smells. At the end of the day no one uses it, everyone eats

out.”

She adds that eating out is more relaxing, and she finds it necessary to have some

time to relax during lunch. At her company, she is allowed to have a flexible hour

break; however, she stated that “there is a lot of pressure from my boss to eat quickly

and return, it’s like people are noticing if you go fast, and you feel bad for taking the

entire lunch hour”.

When, usually once a week, she manages to go together with one or two colleagues

for lunch at a “nicer restaurant nearby”, she would feel more entitled to make use of

the full hour break. Yet for her, that is barely enough, as she connects also the

pleasure in lunch breaks with what she thinks about productivity:

“Yes, I’d like to stress that I do think about this a lot, having a pleasant lunch hour,

socialising and relaxing. I would work better after lunch if I could have that, and I would


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be happy to not arrive late so I could have more time to lunch. That situation is one of

the factors that don’t motivate me to stay working for this company,”

Portrait 1: Company Sapphire

In attempts to capture the context in which employers compromise decision making

processes in lunch collectively, a two-hour participant observation was done at a

company in Central London. For purposes of anonymity, we renamed the company as

‘Sapphire’. Occupying an entire floor in a bustling office building, Sapphire has an L-

shaped space arrangement, which was generally left open without any particular need

to partition rooms and corners. A communal kitchen is installed in the main junction,

where employees can make coffee and tea or prepare their food. Adjacent to the

kitchen are the multifunctional long benches where people usually utilise to wind down

between tasks, to have semi-formal meetings, and most importantly to have their

lunches. Indeed, some of them pointed the table out as the ‘lunch table’.

Wednesdays are the days for team lunch. The company understands that people work

in different paces, and each have their own preferred time arrangement. It is not

uncommon to have employees who choose to skip lunchtime so they can finish work

earlier; e.g. employees who have kids. In general, as the company has a more relaxed

attitude for its staff to flexibly organise their worktime, the idea is to arrange a day of

the week when people are encouraged to have a simultaneous break and eat together.

It is never a mandatory thing, as we also observed a number of people that chose to

go directly to their desks after preparing their dish in the kitchen.


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In certain occasions, one employee told us, the department would order food in a large

amount for the staff. They hold monthly potlucks as well. However, most of the time

people simply go out to buy their food at nearby cafés and restaurants, or bring their

own lunches. Apparently, by having a strategically placed office with abundant options

for takeaway lunches, what people are having influences others. One person

remarked that it is always easier to ask other people what they are thinking of having,

or at least where they are going to get their lunch. This is also related to the fact that

the meals serve as a conversation starter, e.g. “where did you get that soup?”, or “did

you made that salad yourself?”, etc.

We moved on to talk with six junior employees about commensality in general. The

first thing that they did was to move aside so we could squeeze in between them. The

bench was not big enough to fit every member of the team, so they have to take turns

if they want to eat with other people.

Several points regarding how individuals deal with occasional eating together

emerged from the conversation. One woman told us that it is not necessarily frowned

upon to choose to eat by yourself (outside or at your desk), but in the longer period of

time it may build habits that divide ‘the usual’ with ‘the occasional’ member of the

communal lunch. The limited space, she observed, habitually produced small groups,

or rather ‘conversation pools’ that emerged from the seat arrangement.

Furthermore, although people generally agreed on the benefits in having lunch

together, they also acknowledged the ‘social obligations’ that come with it. In cases

like eating outside, then they would generally spend more money—merrier occasions

often mean more expensive meals. Inside the workplace, when people have shorter

break times than the majority (e.g. having to run for meeting after lunch or working


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behind deadlines), some people would prefer eating by themselves just to save time

from the extended conversations that usually follows. Figure 1 shows a collage the

group made to represent their ideal visualisation of a work lunchtime.

Figure 1: Sapphire's group collage on the ‘ideal lunchtime'

Portrait 2: Company Azure

A group interview was conducted with a group of 3 people that work for a small

company (henceforth renamed ‘Azure’) based in Central London, that has twelve

employees altogether.

The group regarded the fact of not having adequate eating facilities inside the

company as a barrier for them to eat together. In this sense, the group though that the

employees’ wellbeing was not considered much by their employer.

“they used to offer healthy snacks too, it was really nice, because it shows that the

company is taking care of you, that they are giving something in return for the effort

you put in the company.”


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One of them added that she would like to bring food from home to control her diets

while saving money, but does not because of the lack of common place to eat in the

company. Eating on their working desk was not a favourable option either, as they

tend to continue working as a consequence of being there, thus “not having a real

break”.

When asked about the duration of their lunch break, the group went into a lively

discussion that illustrated the tension between those who have experiences working

in large scale companies and those who have not: the two employees who have been

there for longer said, “although they say you have an hour, there is a huge pressure

to finish lunch in a shorter time, so we usually only take half hour lunch”. The employee

who has been in the company for only 8 months was categorical when stating, “I take

my full hour; it’s your legal right, you know?” At that point he left for a cigarette and the

two others remarked, “when you are in a small company, you have to make some

sacrifices, you know? You can’t just go out for an hour. He doesn’t understand it, he

was from Selfridges, you know”.

They were then asked to make a collage about their ideal and worst imaginable

lunchtime at work. In the ideal lunchtime collage (Fig. 2), they included images of, as

per described by them, “healthy and tasty food, outdoors - grass garden or swimming

pool deck- a comfortable place to rest after lunch”, and seating that would enable them

to eat together. In the worst lunchtime collage they included images of an extremely

crowded place, a desk, a prison - explained to be about “the feeling of being locked

up, not free” - and a toilet - explained to be representing bad smell.


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Figure 2: Azure's group collage on the ‘ideal lunchtime'.

Result

A key conclusion that informed further discussion is that the majority of people enjoy

lunchtime spent with their colleagues, but what they want is to socialise in a pleasant

environment. One key theme that arose from our ethnographic studies were the

compromises made between autonomy and degrees of sociality: one set of issues

having an inverse effect on the other. This led us to borrow the concept 'scalable

sociality'. devised by Daniel Miller to describe a major affordance of social media

(Borgerson & Miller 2016), the theory is proven to be a useful concept in describing

how people make decisions regarding commensality. The flexibility in crafting one's

lunchtime extends not only to its physical elements, but also social configurations.

This, we suggest, happens in dialogue with the choice of food, environment, and time

spent eating. Furthermore, the sympathy or antipathy for the company and the


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company culture affects the desire of socialising during work time, thus

the possibility of eating together.

The Cartogram of Commensality

Our study found that worksite lunches are contested territory where personal

preferences negotiate with considerations to accommodate collective needs.

Respondents offered several reasons for how and why they choose to do this: key

issues were time availability, autonomy, cost, convenience, company culture and the

provision of eating spaces and facilities. The idea of Miller's 'scalable sociality' are

implemented in the sailing vessels analogy below. The more sociable the occasion,

i.e. more people included in the group, the less individual preferences weigh as it

demands consensus amongst the group.

To provide prompts to think about the sociality of food in the future, we devised a

visualisation in the form of a cartogram based on the gathered information and our

analysis, which in turn enables us to interpret the data and speculate possible futures

of eating together and wellbeing during lunchtime at work.


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Figure 3: Visuals of the cartogram and the four movable boats.

The islands represent dining locations away from the workplace and feature

characteristics typical of the places that people choose for eating together. Based on

the analysis of our data, those insights are materialised in the islands as 'moods':

• Eden Island is the ideal place for a meal together; verdant yet offering shelter

and comfortable environment. Diners are soothed by natural sounds and scents,

and longer amount of time to indulge in their food. Eden is further away and

more expensive than the other options.

• Quick ‘n’ Cool Cay is a clean, pleasant place to go for a meal, it is relatively

inexpensive, comfortable and not too far from the workplace.


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• Picnic Islet is a pleasant place because of its greenery and is relatively close to

the workplace. However, seating is quite uncomfortable and it is not spacious.

• Sardine Can Islet is the least pleasant choice, crowded with uncomfortable or

even no seating at all, which does not allow employees to relax. The

convenience thus restricted only in regards to time consumption and price.

The boats represent the different social configurations:

The Cruiser can accommodate the whole company, allowing maximum sociality and

minimum individual choice.

The Yacht accommodates a large group of people, achieving a good level of sociality

and modest amount of options.

The Dinghy accommodates 2-4 people, achieving a variety of levels in individual

choice.

The Coracle accommodates a single person; therefore, it allows minimum sociality

yet encourages maximum autonomy.

Our study also found that the company culture, as well as the pleasantness of the

communal environment of it, immensely influences how people eat their lunch. For

that reason, we created three fictitious companies that encompass general

characteristics we identified in companies throughout our research.

Company Turquoise is a large-sized company; there is a fixed lunch hour and

employees are provided with a canteen, not being close to any alternatives it is most

usual for co-workers to eat here.

Company Sapphire is a medium-sized company; lunchtime is flexible and employees

can choose when to take a lunch break and for how long. Sociality is encouraged by


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the provision of a common area with kitchen and dining facilities where employees can

gather and relax. Typically, people bring in packed lunches or food bought from a

nearby outlet.

Company Azure is a small-sized company; it’s culture pressurises staff to eat lunch

as quickly as possible and there is a rudimentary kitchen space but no common dining

facilities. Staff take staggered lunch breaks going out individually or in pairs.

Conclusion

The various demands of living in a fast-paced era has created inevitable

consequences in our lives. People have adapted to living day-to-day in a hurried

manner, adapting to the ever-changing factors that affect society and continuing to

constantly keep up. These elements play into every aspect of our lives, and something

as simple and innate as the act of eating should not be disregarded.

The widespread presence of food-to-go sections in convenience stores and

supermarkets cuts the time we require to think about, process, prepare, and ultimately

eat our food. The close to endless breadth of choices disconnects people from their

food, the producers with their consumers, the supply with the demand, and the cause

with the consequences. What ensues is the abundance of processed food,

unthoughtful production, and finally, the loss of the social aspects in eating. It

ultimately ends up becoming a trade of our sociality traits for comfort and speed in our

independent lives.

What is interesting about this very society is that it grows exponentially, and also

circulates the means to sustain the infrastructure that supports the habit. In response


24

to this, the continuation of exploring and fully comprehending social changes are

critical in properly addressing the issues and creating solutions. Expanding on Kniffin

et al. (2015), institutional and regulatory involvements from employers and

government may be instrumental in assuring healthy food habits and wellbeing in the

workplace. Governmental supports may come in the form of regulations in work

environment, implementations in nutritional and health recommendations, and policy

regarding worksite eating (cf. Jørgensen et al. 2010). Accordingly, encouragement for

partnership in public and private stakeholders, for instance between trade unions and

ministries, is necessary.

The Cartogram is intended to highlight issues regarding eating together in the

working environment, we hope that our study can contribute something to the

understanding of current attitudes towards shared eating and offer an indication of

some important parameters to take into consideration when looking at ways that

workplace sociality and wellbeing could be enhanced.


25

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Appendix – Group Collages

Azure’s group collage on the least ideal lunchtime

Sapphire's group collage on the least ideal lunchtime

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