In February 2026, THL (the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare) published its first nutrition recommendations for working-age adults. They tell us what we probably already knew, but what is surprisingly hard to put into practice, especially in demanding expert work: a regular, balanced lunch in the middle of the workday helps you keep going and supports alertness and work ability. Even so, the lunch break easily shrinks into a banana gulped down at the computer and the sixth cup of coffee of the day.
Often it comes down to how everyday life at work is structured. If there is no staff restaurant and the pace is demanding, lunch is simply something you don’t have time to think about or choose, let alone sit down to enjoy. So the knowledge worker shrugs, goes to get a seventh cup of coffee and pushes hunger off until the afternoon, or even until the workday is over.
As an employer, you can influence this in a concrete way and more than you might expect, even when you don’t have a staff restaurant of your own.
Lunch is the most important meal of the workday.
Lunch is not just one meal among others. Real food eaten during the workday is a lunch that doesn’t make you tired and sluggish, but:
- maintains alertness and focus,
- restores mind and body in the middle of the day,
- counters afternoon fatigue,
- supports workplace safety and
- helps you keep going, especially in demanding tasks
The new THL nutrition recommendations emphasize a regular meal rhythm and varied, real food with a suitable balance of vegetables, protein and carbohydrates. This is where you, the employer, step in and make possible workplace practices that directly affect how well employees recover in the middle of the day.
3 ways to support lunch during the workday.
Way 1: Make the lunch break a basic practice.
Let’s make one thing clear: A statutory lunch break doesn’t happen if there is no room for it in the workday.
As an employer, you support lunch by agreeing on shared ground rules and setting an example by following them yourself:
- time for lunch is reserved in the calendar,
- the lunch break is untouchable: no meetings or anything else are scheduled over it,
- supervisors and top management act as role models by sticking to this practice themselves.
The lunch break doesn’t have to be long, but when planning it, remember that part of a restorative meal is the chance to eat in peace. A meal is a whole whose purpose is to stop the work buzz and focus on something completely different for a moment.
Remember that meeting catering is not lunch.
Way 2: Lunch where employees actually eat.
The forerunner of the lunch benefit, the lunch voucher, was originally created so that employers could offer employees tax-subsidized meals during the workday, even when the company has no staff restaurant of its own. Today, more and more organizations offer a lunch benefit as a kind of basic benefit in their employee benefits package.
A lunch benefit makes lunch during the workday cheaper for the employee, because it is a tax-subsidized employee benefit.
For the employer, a lunch benefit is the easiest and a very cost-efficient way to support eating during the workday if the company has no staff restaurant of its own. Read more: Lunch benefit taxation and costs for employers.
If there is no staff restaurant available, employees can enjoy their lunch at restaurants nearby, pick up food to go from a restaurant, or buy affordable provisions from an ordinary grocery store. Read more: What can you buy from grocery stores with a lunch benefit?
Way 3: Negotiate contract-priced lunches with nearby restaurants.
A significant reason why the lunch benefit goes unused is the high price of eating lunch out.
You can help with this and support your employees’ lunch in other ways besides the lunch benefit itself. The easiest way is to negotiate contract-priced lunches for your employees with restaurants near your office. Negotiating a contract lunch gives your employees a concrete message that you care about their wellbeing and encourage them to recharge during the workday.
In the Epassi app, your employee can recognize a contract-priced lunch by the Contract tag, and they can also find restaurants that offer contract lunches on their Epassi home page under Contracts.
How can you put this into practice at your own company?
Below you’ll find our free checklist, which helps you set up easy routines for lunch practices at your workplace. The checklist works as a good basic tool even if your company has no staff restaurant of its own.
In the checklist you’ll find:
- concrete steps to make the lunch break possible,
- tips for using the lunch benefit at a restaurant and at a grocery store,
- instructions for using contract-priced lunches in Epassi
👉 Download the employer checklist and put the lunch benefit to use in everyday life.
Way +1: Support packed lunches.
Not everyone wants or has time to go to a restaurant in the middle of the day. Still, encourage your employees to take a meal break, so that their work performance and good flow at work are maintained.
According to THL’s nutrition recommendations for working-age adults, a packed lunch can also be a perfectly good way to eat well during the workday. With the lunch benefit, your employee can put together a varied and balanced meal, for example from the fresh produce or salad counter at a grocery store.
The lunch benefit makes it possible to:
- choose good-quality food options,
- put together a balanced meal at a grocery store, too, and
- keep a regular lunch rhythm, even in mobile work
When a packed lunch is seen as an equally valuable option as a restaurant lunch, more employees find a way to eat well during the workday that works for them.
Lunch is part of everyday working life.
In the end, everyone chooses what to eat, where and when. But you can create the framework and culture that encourage people to do their work with their own energy and recovery in mind.
When a lunch break is possible for everyone, the options for taking it are accessible and the financial support for it is in place, lunch doesn’t stay in the speeches but is part of the workplace’s everyday life every day.
Even small actions make a big difference to coping at work.
Do you want to make sure your company eats something other than coffee during the workday? Take a look at the employer checklist and make sure the lunch benefit supports eating during the workday at your company, too.
Bonus: Frequently asked questions about the lunch benefit.
What is the lunch benefit?
The lunch benefit is a tax-subsidized employee benefit offered by the employer. With it, an employee can pay for a meal eaten during the workday at a restaurant or, in some cases, at a grocery store. The purpose of the lunch benefit is to support regular lunch eating, especially when the workplace has no staff restaurant. In Finland, a lunch benefit can be offered through Epassi, for example.
What can you buy from a grocery store with the lunch benefit?
As a rule of thumb, you can pay with the lunch benefit at a grocery store for complete meals that don’t need heating or other preparation. For lunch, you can grab a meal you like from the fresh food counter, the sushi counter or the salad buffet, for example. Drinks with a bottle deposit can’t be paid for with the lunch benefit.
Where can you use the lunch benefit?
You can use the lunch benefit at lunch restaurants and other restaurants serving food that are open to everyone, and in certain everyday situations at a grocery store, too.
How can an employer support lunch without a staff restaurant?
An employer can offer a lunch benefit, agree on practices for the lunch break and negotiate contract-priced lunches with restaurants near the workplace.
Where can an employee find contract lunches?
In the Epassi app, contract-priced lunches are collected under the Contracts tag on the home page.
How should the lunch benefit be offered?
The lunch benefit can be offered either as a salary deduction or on top of the salary. In both cases, the employer pays 25 % and the employee pays 75 % of the taxable value of the benefit. In the Epassi app, employees can find lunch places nearby either on a map or as a list. Epassi’s lunch benefit works at both restaurants and grocery stores, as long as the meal being bought meets the Finnish Tax Administration’s guidelines. See the guidelines here.
