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Key Takeaways
- Google’s attention to detail extends to their employee food program — a seemingly small perk with major implications.
- Google uses AI to minimize waste, maximize value and make real-time decisions about what works when it comes to feeding its employees.
- Google views its food program as an investment in creating informal spaces where collaboration happens naturally.
Food was never a perk at Google. It was a bet on how people work.
When Helen Wechsler, Senior Director, Food Program CoE at Google, talks about the company’s food program, she does not frame it as a benefit designed to impress.
Instead, she frames it as culture. From the earliest days, meals were how the original Google team gathered, talked and built trust. Long before sprawling campuses or polished cafes, food was the thing that brought them together and kept them there.
Today, Google provides meals and access to food for employees across its offices worldwide. Cafes, micro kitchens on every floor, coffee and tea bars, teaching kitchens and even food trucks are part of how the company feeds its people. The scale is massive, but Wechsler is clear that feeding employees is not about abundance.
“We have a captive audience,” she says. “We are feeding people every day, and that comes with a really weighty responsibility.”
That responsibility is evident immediately in Google’s New York City offices, where I interviewed Wechsler. She offered me some of the spa water— I couldn’t believe how good it was.
For Wechsler, that reaction is exactly the point. “We just wanted people to drink more water,” she explains. “Spa water is a good way to do that.”
It sounds simple, almost insignificant. But those small choices are deliberate. Hydration stations that feel inviting. Details that spark curiosity. Moments that slow people down just enough to feel cared for. When food is free, indifference is the easiest failure. Wechsler calls it the shrug. Google refuses that approach.
“We want to be that joy in the day,” she says. “We want it to feel seamless.”
Hospitality, in this context, is not transactional. It is relational. Food becomes the cultural connector inside a highly technical environment. A reminder that no matter how advanced the work becomes, people still come together the same way they always have.
Over a meal.
Technology that cares
At Google’s scale, good intentions are not enough.
Feeding people well requires systems that can absorb uncertainty, adapt quickly and still leave room for care. Technology is what makes that possible — it protects hospitality at scale.
“Technology is your best friend if you use it correctly,” she says. “It helps you evaluate, helps you predict, helps you think in a different way.”
That philosophy shapes how Google approaches AI. The food team is not chasing automation for its own sake or looking for perfect answers. They are experimenting. Testing. Learning in public. AI becomes a tool to stretch thinking rather than narrow it.
“Play with it,” she says. “Use it, use it, use it.”
That mindset matters because Google operates with a level of unpredictability most restaurants never face. There is no register. No ordering funnel. No reliable way to know who will walk in on any given day. People come and go freely, which makes food waste a constant concern.
Over the past eight years, technology has helped bring clarity to that chaos. Menu management systems, recipe scaling and pre- and post-production records allow teams to compare what they expected to serve with what was actually eaten. The real breakthrough came when the data became visual.
“Until we started measuring it visually, it didn’t stick,” Wechsler says.
Today, waste is photographed, weighed and logged automatically. Images recognize the food, connect it to menus, and surface patterns that chefs can actually act on. If something consistently comes back untouched, it sparks a conversation. Maybe the recipe is wrong. Maybe the timing is off. Maybe it simply does not resonate.
Technology also supports creativity. Trim becomes spa water. Fruit scraps turn into new beverages. Excess ingredients find second lives in jams, chutneys or entirely new dishes. Measurement does not kill imagination. It fuels it.
The lesson for restaurants watching from the outside is simple. Technology should make people calmer, not busier. More thoughtful, not more reactive. When used well, it gives teams the space to care better.
Hospitality still belongs to humans. Technology just helps them see what matters.
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Key Takeaways
- Google’s attention to detail extends to their employee food program — a seemingly small perk with major implications.
- Google uses AI to minimize waste, maximize value and make real-time decisions about what works when it comes to feeding its employees.
- Google views its food program as an investment in creating informal spaces where collaboration happens naturally.
Food was never a perk at Google. It was a bet on how people work.
When Helen Wechsler, Senior Director, Food Program CoE at Google, talks about the company’s food program, she does not frame it as a benefit designed to impress.
