How London's Most Inclusive Employers Handle Dietary Diversity in the Workplace

London is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world, and its workforce reflects that. The numbers are worth having to hand before the next catering decision: 21% of Londoners already follow a meat-free diet (vegan, vegetarian or pescatarian) with another 14% intending to, 15% of the city's population is Muslim according to the 2021 Census, around 6% of UK adults have a food allergy and roughly 1 in 100 has coeliac disease. Overlap them and the question of "what should we order for the team?" stops being a matter of preference and becomes a matter of arithmetic.

In this context, a corporate food programme that doesn't accommodate dietary diversity isn't just incomplete. It's a signal — one that employees notice, that candidates ask about, and that eventually appears in Glassdoor reviews under the heading "areas for improvement."

The companies getting this right are not using multiple suppliers or complex workarounds. They're using platforms that are designed from the start for a diverse workforce — where the filters work, the certifications are verified, and every employee finds something genuinely suitable without having to ask.

The dietary landscape in a London office

The dietary requirements that a London corporate food programme needs to support go well beyond the basics:

Halal. London has one of the largest Muslim populations of any European city. For employees observing halal dietary requirements, the question is not just whether halal options exist — it's whether the certification is genuine and whether cross-contamination in preparation is managed. A food programme that lists "halal available" without verified certification is not a solution.

Kosher. London's Jewish community is concentrated particularly in North London, Canary Wharf, and the City. Kosher dietary requirements are specific and non-negotiable — and a corporate food programme that doesn't include certified kosher restaurants is effectively excluding those employees from participating.

Vegan and plant-based. Around 3% of UK adults are vegan and roughly 5.5% vegetarian, but in London the combined meat-free figure reaches 21%, and it skews young. In a London technology or financial services firm, a food programme with thin vegan options will be actively criticised by a meaningful portion of the workforce, not only for ethical reasons but because the selection is poor. Mildreds, atis, The Salad Project and Urban Greens exist precisely because that market is large.

Gluten-free. Coeliac disease affects around 1 in 100 people in the UK, with a further significant proportion avoiding gluten for sensitivity or preference. A food programme that can't reliably indicate gluten-free options — with appropriate caveats about preparation — creates both an inclusion gap and a liability concern.

Vegetarian (non-vegan). Still the most common dietary restriction in most UK offices, but often underserved by corporate catering that defaults to "we have a vegetarian option" rather than providing a genuinely equivalent range of choice.

Low-FODMAP, nut-free, and other medical dietary requirements. These are less common but equally important to individual employees. A food programme with detailed filtering — by allergen, by dietary category, by cuisine — serves these employees in a way that a fixed menu never can.

Why traditional catering fails diverse teams

Traditional office catering — a rotating menu from a canteen supplier, platters ordered from a single restaurant, buffet-style delivery from one kitchen — is structurally ill-suited to dietary diversity.

A single supplier or a single kitchen cannot simultaneously provide verified halal, certified kosher, vegan, gluten-free, and nut-free food in a single delivery. The certifications conflict. The preparation environments are shared. The range is necessarily constrained by what one team of chefs can produce.

The result is a food programme in which the majority of employees eat well, and a meaningful minority — often those from minority faith or dietary backgrounds — receive a diminished experience: the same three options every week, or a labelled tray that has been added as an afterthought, or the suggestion that they order separately from a different supplier.

That experience is noticed. In post-survey data, dietary exclusion is consistently one of the factors that employees from minority backgrounds identify when describing their experience of the workplace.

How individual-choice delivery solves the diversity problem

Ordit's approach to dietary diversity is structural rather than additive. Rather than one kitchen trying to serve everyone, Ordit connects employees to 300+ London restaurants — each with their own certifications, their own specialisms, and their own dietary filtering.

The Ordit app allows employees to filter by:

• Halal (verified certification only — not "halal-friendly" or "may contain halal")
• Kosher (rabbinically certified, via Ordit's partner restaurants)
• Vegan and plant-based
• Vegetarian
• Gluten-free
• Nut-free
• Dairy-free
• Any combination of the above

The filter applies across all 300+ restaurants, showing each employee exactly what is available to them — not a reduced subset of a shared menu, but a full selection of restaurants and dishes that meet their specific requirements.

In a group ordering context (Ordit's recurring group orders), all employees order individually through the same interface, with their own filters applied. The result: the whole team eats together at the same time, from a delivery that has arrived together, and every employee ordered from a restaurant that met their requirements. Nobody receives a separate box labelled "dietary." Nobody has fewer options than their colleagues.

Ramadan and religious observance: the operational dimension

Religious dietary observance has a temporal dimension that many corporate food programmes don't accommodate.

During Ramadan, Muslim employees observing the fast do not eat between dawn and sunset. The standard corporate lunch order — timed for 1pm — is not appropriate for an employee who is fasting. But the same employee may wish to participate in the team meal, or may need a late meal delivered to the office for iftar.

Ordit's individual ordering allows employees to set their own ordering time independently of the group order. An employee observing Ramadan can schedule a delivery for iftar — typically between 6pm and 8pm during the relevant months — using their standard Ordit budget, without requiring HR to create a separate process.

This is a small accommodation that carries significant meaning. It says: the company has thought about this. The system was designed with you in mind.

Ordit clients in financial services and professional services — where working past iftar time is common during Ramadan — report that this feature is specifically valued by Muslim employees and referenced in conversations about inclusion.

The business case: inclusion as retention

The DE&I argument for dietary inclusion is the right one to make on principle. But the retention argument is also significant.

Employees who feel excluded from the daily social ritual of team lunch — because the food programme doesn't accommodate their diet — are experiencing a daily micro-exclusion. These experiences compound. They are not the only reason employees leave, but they appear in exit interview data, in anonymous survey comments, and in Glassdoor reviews more often than HR teams typically expect.

A food programme that is genuinely inclusive — not inclusive in a "we have a vegetarian option" sense, but inclusive in the sense that every employee has the same breadth of choice — removes a source of daily friction for a meaningful portion of the workforce.

For London organisations that are serious about their DE&I commitments, the corporate food programme is one of the most visible and most frequent tests of whether those commitments translate to daily experience.

Starting the conversation

Ordit works with HR and DE&I teams at organisations across London to configure food programmes that work for genuinely diverse workforces — including setup of dietary filters, certification verification, and late-meal options for religious observance.

Setup takes one to two weeks. The dietary configuration is built in from day one, not added on request.