The free food days at Google are numbered. Googlers will no longer be getting free dinner, tea trolley, or afternoon snack attack services. Valleywag broke the story and according to their source, “Google has drastically cut back their budget on the culinary program”. As the publication puts it, “Google has long milked its cafeterias for their publicity value; company executives have crowed about the company’s resistance to recessions and its commitment to coddling its employees. Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin even promised shareholders they’d add perks, rather than cut them.”

In 2004, they wrote: We provide many unusual benefits for our employees, including meals free of charge … We are careful to consider the long term advantages to the company of these benefits. Expect us to add benefits rather than pare them down over time. We believe it is easy to be penny wise and pound foolish with respect to benefits that can save employees considerable time and improve their health and productivity.

The shocking announcement will be made to Googlers on Monday. Still on the menu, however, is free breakfast and lunch. Perhaps, the famous Google 30, which is the average amount of weight Googlers gain on joining the company, will now drastically drop to a more agile amount. Valleywag goes on to say:

Could this all stem from a change of heart by Google’s formerly perk-crazy founders? Sergey Brin is said to have complained about employees’ overweening sense of entitlement to “bottled water and M&Ms,” a comment company flacks denied he made. Regardless of what Brin precisely said, it makes sense that he’d rethink his generosity. Brin has made his billions already. Spending to keep his employees motivated at startup levels won’t pay off. Tightening the belt to keep profit margins high? That, and not free dinners, will preserve Brin’s outlandish wealth. The savings from cutting dinner, as well as some snacks, should be substantial. Employees often took their spouses and children out to dinner at the cafes — on shareholders’ dime.

Fortune had named Google the best place to work in 2007 with one of the key reasons being the free food which they attributed to keeping employees happy and loyal. The free food has always been a key recruitment tool for Google and clearly, it is not working anymore. This cut is not going to help; this is not gonna go over well with existing and potential hires - which the company has been experiencing difficulties with.

(Image source: Jeromy Henry, Fortune)

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