If you haven’t yet heard of a micro market, you will likely hear of them soon. Micro markets are a healthy food solution, popping up in Australian workplaces.
A micro market is a self-service market, often situated in a company’s kitchen area, that provides packaged foods, drinks, fruit and fresh food using a fully-automated payment system.
In the open market, the employee picks a product from an open rack display, or reach-in refrigerator, and scans the item at a self-checkout kiosk. The markets which are available 24/7, are operated within a monitored framework, supported by surveillance cameras.
Let us show you how it works;
As you can see, micro markets are set to change the way Australian employees access food at work. Let us now highlight 4 ways micro markets can impact employees’ health and happiness;
1. Enhances personal health and wellbeing
According to a recent survey by News Corp Australia, “93 per cent of Australian adults are not meeting their recommended daily intake of fruit and vegetables which could be putting them at risk of reduced life expectancy.” With over a third of our lives spent at work, it is often at work where our diets fail. Our challenges include being time poor, lack of access to nutritious options combined with the temptation of free unhealthy snacks at work.
Micro markets are designed to offer fresh and healthy food at work with no restrictions to the type and number of products. This means micro markets can cater to an individual’s daily dietary needs covering fruit, salads, wraps, veggie pods, yoghurts, muesli, nuts etc. Operators like Morsl, ensure their products are selected according to nutrition guidelines whilst being appropriately portion sized, which is critical for maintaining a healthy diet.
Consistently eating well ensures we are more productive at work, are less fatigued and less prone to disease and illnesses.
2. Unrivalled convenience
One of the biggest issues for employees today is the struggle to balance healthiness against convenience. Very few have the time to traipse through the supermarkets reading the nutritional labels during their work day and most struggle to find something good to eat when all the surrounding cafes have closed for the day.
Micro markets ensure that employees have on-site access to fresh and healthy food, snacks and drinks, at any time of the day. You can’t get more convenient than that!
3. Saves time during each work day
Let’s do the maths. If every day an employee leaves the office to;
- get their morning coffee and snack, let’s add 15 minutes,
- grab their lunch which includes walking or driving time, selecting which café/take-out shop, standing in the queue and then making their way back to the office; let’s add 30 to 40 minutes, and
- pick up their afternoon drink and snack, let’s add 15 minutes.
Employees are losing a good hour every day that could be used for exercising, socialising with friends, completing those personal tasks or simply having some quiet time to refresh each day.
Micro markets are a grab and go solution with fast and easy checkout that allows employees to save time during their workday. The technology allows an individual to set up an account so that they only need to scan, press their fingerprint and walk away. Their purchases go straight off their account. The total time at a micro market can be less than one minute out of someone’s day.
4. Better morale
If employees feel like their company supports and cares about their health and wellbeing, this type of culture leads to higher morale across the company.
A company that helps employees practice healthy eating behaviours in the office is one crucial and often missed part of the employee wellness experience. By companies taking away the traditional unhealthy vending machines, skipping the free biscuits and muffins and installing micro markets with healthy nutritional choices, this can lead to happier and healthier employees.
For more information on micro markets in Australia and how they can benefit your workplace, visit www.morsl.com.au
