How teams are dealing with food insecurity at work, and what each approach costs
September 1, 2026 · Editorial Team
Food insecurity shows up at work, even when people are employed full time
If you’re trying to deal with food insecurity at work, it helps to start with the basic fact that this is not only a home problem. According to MSUToday, new research from Michigan State University suggests that many working adults in the U.S., including those employed full time, still struggle to access enough nutritious food, and that stress can follow them into the workplace and affect focus and performance.
That matters because food insecurity is often hard to see. According to WorkLife Partnership, it can stay hidden from coworkers and managers, even when someone is skipping meals because money is tight. If you only look for obvious signs, you miss a lot of people who are dealing with it quietly.
Some teams treat it as a benefits problem
One common response is to add a benefit for workers with lower incomes. According to NEJM Catalyst, Elevance Health tested a custom social benefit program for low-income employees that included access to a narrow network of providers and in-kind nutritional support, with the goal of improving food security, diet quality, and self-reported health.
This kind of approach has a clear appeal: it gives people direct help without making them prove their need in front of a manager or coworker. It also tries to target support where the problem is most likely to be severe.
The trade-off is that it depends on eligibility rules. According to NEJM Catalyst, the program compared employees enrolled in the social benefit, with income of less than $42,500, against people who waived it or were just above the cutoff, with income from $42,500 to $62,500. That kind of design can leave some workers just outside the line without help, even if they are still struggling.
Some employers make food support part of the workplace itself
Another approach is to offer food support where people work. That can mean a pantry, a food box, or another onsite option. According to WorkLife Partnership, one worker, Tara, said she would not be able to eat without access to a food pantry.
This approach can be useful because it is immediate. People do not have to wait for a claim to be approved or for a benefit to show up in a paycheck. It also fits the reality that food insecurity can be invisible until someone is already running out of options.
But onsite support has limits. It helps most when workers can actually get to the site and use it without worrying about being seen. It also depends on stock, storage, staffing, and a steady budget. If the pantry is empty, if the hours don’t match shifts, or if people are afraid that using it will mark them out, the support is weaker than it looks on paper.
Some teams try to reduce the pressure instead of only handing out food
A third approach is to treat food insecurity as part of a wider money problem. In the MSU piece, Francisco Moreno, assistant professor of management at MSU’s Eli Broad College of Business, is quoted as researching food insecurity in the workplace. That framing matters because the problem is not only about food; it is tied to what workers can afford and the stress that follows them into work.
This is where managers sometimes look at schedules, pay timing, or other costs that make food harder to afford. The sources here do not give a specific workplace model for that kind of response, so it is better to be clear about the limit: we can say that food insecurity shows up at work and affects focus, but we cannot point to one tested workplace fix from these sources other than the social benefit program and the food pantry example.
The trade-off with broad support is that it can help more people at once, but it is harder to target and harder to measure. It may also be slower to change than a pantry or a benefit, because it asks the employer to look at the conditions that create the problem, not just the symptom.
The best fit depends on what problem you are trying to solve
These approaches solve different parts of the same problem.
A targeted benefit works best when you want to reach lower-income workers with a defined support package. It can be structured and private, but it leaves gaps at the edge of eligibility.
An onsite food option works best when you want something people can use right away. It can be practical and concrete, but it depends on access, trust, and steady supply.
A broader workplace response works best when you want to reduce the pressure that makes food insecurity show up in the first place. It may reach more people, but it is less tidy and harder to connect to one program.
If you are choosing among them, the first question is not which idea sounds nicest. It is which constraint is doing the most damage: eligibility, access, or the cost pressure underneath both.
What to do next if you manage people or design benefits
If you are deciding how to respond, start by asking whether your current setup makes food insecurity easier to hide. That is a real risk, according to WorkLife Partnership, and it means people may already be dealing with it before anyone notices.
Then decide what you can change first. If you need a fast fix, an onsite food option may be the most direct. If you can fund a more formal program, a targeted benefit may help workers who are most exposed. If you are looking at the root pressure, review pay timing, scheduling, and other costs that can leave people short at the end of the month.
The point is to match the tool to the problem, not to assume one program will do all of it.
If you are a family trying to stretch food across a work week, a planner like Platter can help with one piece of the load at home, but the bigger question for employers is still whether workers can reliably afford enough food in the first place.