Meal Delivery Service Munchery Expands to Offer Corporate Lunches

Delivery-only meal service Munchery is expanding into the corporate lunch box game. The San Francisco-based startup tells TechCrunch that starting today the company will begin delivering individualized lunch orders to office workers at companies located in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York City.

The service is an expansion of the company’s Munchery@Work program, which serves customizable dinners to businesses. While the majority of Munchery’s meals are designed for heating up at home or in the office, a significant portion of the Munchery@Work lunch offerings will be ready-to-eat and delivered chilled.

Munchery sets itself apart from other corporate catering services and restaurants in that employees can select and receive their own customized, individually packaged meal, rather than sharing from large, pre-made prepared trays.

A rep for Munchery tells Eater that the lunch menu will initially look the same as the dinner menu “but there will be a variety of options that work for both meals, including salads and grain bowls.” Workers for instance can choose among a selection of rotating menu items like beef pho, sockeye salmon with huckleberries, and roasted delicata squash risotto prepared by real-life chefs in a nearby warehouse. Unfortunately, workers can alter their lunch tastes on a whim. Starting off, lunch orders must be placed by midnight the evening before the delivery. However, “as the program evolves the cut-off times will likely become later.”

Munchery reportedly began testing the program in April. For a fee ($8.95 per month or $85 per year) members can use Munchery’s service as often as they choose, though CEO Tri Tran says that he would happy to see users ordering from the service at least once a week. Additionally, there’s an option for companies to provide employees with stipends on their Munchery accounts for lunch orders.

Delivery-only restaurants are proving to be a big business. A rep for Munchery told Eater last week that the company has reeled in around $117 million in investments during its short tenure despite unstable leadership and the company shows few signs of stopping there. The company expanded same-day service to San Diego, Washington, D.C., Portland, and Sacramento this year.

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