How can we prevent theft of food from shared fridges by coworkers?

Question

A company with several hundred employees has several office rooms used as kitchens - they are equipped with tables, microwaves, sinks and fridges. Employees leave their food in the fridges and sometimes food just disappears. This happens so often it just can't be accidental.

Short of installing a huge surveillance camera ^{see note below} near each of the fridges what can be done to prevent these events?

_{Regarding camera - first, installing it takes effort (and some money), and second, it would mean people don't trust each other, and third, people just don't like being watched by cameras everywhere.}

Answer 1

• Clearly label food with the owner's name.
• An email should go out from an "office manager" or other person who has general responsibility for the facilities saying something like "many packed lunches look alike. Please make sure you are taking your own."
• Periodically purge the common fridges and make it publicly known in advance.
• Sometimes, people assume that food has been left there a long time and it's fair game - maybe it belongs to someone who left the company 2 days ago. If everyone knows that the fridge is periodically purged, they have a stronger feeling that the food that's in there is owned.

This activity may be malicious, or it may be simple confusion. Protect your own food by having distinctive packaging that can't be mistaken for someone else's, and label it clearly.

If it's malicious, it's quite possible that it's happening "off hours" where the perpetrator is less likely to get caught. 2nd or 3rd shift, during large meetings, etc. Some measure of surveillance may be required. You say that doing so would mean that people don't trust each other - if people are having their food stolen, there is already a feeling of distrust in the office. People don't like being watched? Fine - act like adults, stop the food theft and the camera will go away.

Answer 2

Get a lunchbox with an actual lock on it. Put it front and center in the fridge. Get others to do the same.

Alternately, if you've got a laptop and a table in the lunchroom, work in there one day. Your presence should dissuade anyone from taking a lunch that isn't theirs. You can probably play it off as "there was a discussion near my desk and I wanted to find a quiet place to work".

Answer 3

There is very little you can do at the systemic level. There are a few minimally-effective things you can do at the personal level.

At the systemic level, I've never found appeals to reason or compassion to work. I've never worked at a place that used kitchen surveillance, but I wouldn't expect it to work well -- somebody has to monitor it (or review the recordings) and workers who feel insulted by it may work harder to either defeat it or prank it.

If you don't already have a "label with name and date" rule for stuff stored in the kitchen, at least do that to avoid the real or claimed accidents ("I didn't know it wasn't mine").

At the personal level, I've had some success with the following (but all of these are imperfect):

• Bring food the thieves don't like. Develop that liking for eggplant-and-limberger sandwiches. Ok, maybe not that, but unusual food is less likely to be taken.

• Food that looks like it's already been eaten from is less likely to be taken. Take a bite out of that sandwich before putting it into the fridge. This doesn't work as well with pre-packaged and single-serving food, of course.

• Don't use the shared fridge. Buy a small insulated bag and just keep your food at your desk for the few hours until lunch-time. Also, some foods can just sit out for a few hours without harm, like hard-boiled eggs, yogurt, hard cheeses, and fruit.

Answer 4

Honestly, this is pretty hard to solve without some surveillance. I can think of a few options to try to ameliorate it.

1. Using psychology: Post a statement appealing to people’s self-image, because people care about their self image and no one wants to think of themselves as inconsiderate or dishonest. “Please be considerate. People have spent time and money on getting their lunch ready. Some of us have medical conditions which require a specific diet, and having our lunch stolen is much more of a burden than it might appear. Think about how you would feel if people took your property from your desk. Thank you for your consideration.” Or some such version.

2. Trying to catch them in the act by going to the kitchen at unpredictable times, because no one wants to be caught taking something that is not theirs.

3. Bringing something that you don’t have to keep in the kitchen, since if it's not physically in the kitchen, it cannot be taken from the kitchen. It would work, but then you’d have to accommodate the thief(s).

4. This is more out there, and I have never tried it. Maybe it would be possible to use some safe food colorant in a “trap” lunch. Whomever has a colorful tongue afterwards is probably the culprit! (Because no one wants to be seen as a thief)

Answer 5

tldr: keep short term food at your desk. Offer alternative long term food (funded by the company or donations from coworkers) to protect your own long term food.

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I see two separate problems here and they have different solutions.

First, you are preparing something at home, taking it to work, and putting it in the fridge to eat that day. After about 3 hours in the fridge, it's gone, and you don't get any lunch that day. This is pretty rare, really, and I recommend using an insulated bag on or near your desk and ignoring the fridge, while mentioning to management that it's a shame a labelled personal possession can be taken so quickly and blatantly.

Second, you keep something in the fridge or freezer that you might eat sometime soon. You use this when you are hungrier than you expected, or stay late. (Or perhaps one day you're less hungry than you thought, so you leave part of your lunch at work to eat the next day.) After a week or two in the fridge or freezer, you go to eat it and it's gone. This one is far more common. Someone with poor impulse control has convinced themselves they'll replace it before you notice, but has then forgotten. Sure, they should have left it, and failing that replaced it, but they have poor character. Shaming notes etc generally don't work.

I think your best bet here is to ask management for a small budget - say $10/week for a dozen people - and use that to buy fruit, the occasional box of Hot Pockets, and so on. These items will be clearly labelled "free for anyone" "help yourself" "company-provided snacks for people working late" and so on. Now instead of asking Mr Poor Impulse Control to sit hungry at his desk while perfectly yummy food (that he intends to replace) is just feet away, which he's shown he can't do, you're asking him to eat the free stuff and leave the private stuff alone, which he can probably do.

If management won't give you a budget, consider collecting a dollar a week from your coworkers (purely voluntarily of course) and taking turns doing the collecting and shopping. The convenience of knowing there's an apple in the breakroom, some muffins in the freezer etc, will be nice for all of you, and the confidence that anything special you've brought is more likely to be respected will also be nice.

Answer 6

There may be various reasons for such "incidents", but they are the consequence of too "household-like" atmosphere. If anyone can put anything in the bridge, you got that dormitory clima:

I've run out of butter, no problem, I will "borrow" some. Oh, someone has brought some cheese, cool! I'll borrow it too.

Please note, that in some companies, anything that's in kitchen is provided by the company. Normally, it's the sugar, tea and coffee, but some people may be such used to that model, they even don't bother to ask if something in the fridge isn't accidentally brought by some other employer...

The best solution for the big company is to provide basic products like sugar, water etc. by the company, so that nobody need to bring them on their own. The costs are really low, and you avoid the chaos. There are no misunderstanding. Everything in the kitchen is free for everyone. You keep your private food in your locker. You make your sandwitches at home. Period.

It may be a bit radical, but shared household between a hundred unfamiliar people simply can't work well.