Totem’s working to make office food affordable, accessible and efficient.
Why we at Totem decided to build a product from scratch.
Some say that you should not reinvent the wheel. Well, I completely agree. However this is not the case for everything.
Let me try and give an explanation. The wheel was created more than 5000 thousand years ago. Which means we had all the time and wisdom to prove it’s the best structure. Nevertheless, 90% of what we see around us has been created in the last 50 years. Therefore, it’s very difficult to know whether the economic structure that we see is actually the best imaginable. We can link that to the Lindy Effect.
Here is Totem’s Problem: How can we make cafeterias as good as those of Google, accessible not only to companies with more than >200 employees, but also to any company with more than 10 employees?
Some data: the best startups in Paris, those which were created around 5–10 years ago for instance, have 2 people in average working full time on their cafeteria. The awesomeness of their cafeteria is still way lower than that of Google for instance, and it took Google 15 years to build it. Those companies all learnt how to create a nice cafeteria, the hard way and year after year, and I can tell you it is a real pain to find both nice products and amazing equipments while handling the logistics efficiently.
We thought this problem needed to be solved (yes, we are 3 engineer founders 😇) and that’s why we at Totem decided to create a company:
- making cafeterias accessible for any company > 10 employees. You should not need to be Google to have access to a nice cafeteria!
- offering more product choice, healthier products and lower prices by buying bulk products for thousands of companies
- learning from the data and feedback from every client to always improve the employee experience for everyone. The goal is to have the best products (with lots of options), the best delivery experience and the best cafeteria setting!
- while being able to control everything 100% online. No more complicated contracts, 36-month leasing or complicated purchasing because you’re trying to order for 140 people on Amazon… With Totem it is as simple as saying “We are 140 people, we want 3 organic fruits, 2 healthy snacks, 10 coffees and 2 teas, each week, per person.” Then you select the products you like. 3 minutes per week is more than enough!
That’s also why we decided to not compare ourselves to any other company or competitor whether that’s:
- Traditional players, who charge an average fixed fee of €10k/month, including an on-site employee. At Totem, we believe that the digital world will allow for lower costs and an easier way to manage cafeterias. That way will not need an on-site employee, therefore lowering costs and making cafeterias accessible for companies with less than 500 employees. This is a whole new market.
- Companies with a brand new offer or business model. Many companies working on Connected Fridges charge an average fixed fee that runs between €1k-5k/month. I really admire their technical innovation because hardware really is hard.
Plus, simple math can show that a connected fridge is (at this price point) not the right way to solve the office cafeteria problem. A fridge can provide up to 60 employees with daily food and the cost is around €3k/month. A normal fridge costs €40/month at Totem. Which means you have, well, €3k per month to invest in actual products, which represents around €11.60/week/employee. For this price, through Totem you can have:
- 3 organic fruits: €2.25/week
- 3 healthy snacks: €3.75/week
- 10 local coffees: €2/week
- 3 teas: €0.60/week
- 2 good drinks: €3/week
With Totem, your employees can eat as much as the above package each week and it will still cost the same price!
At Totem we also always remember that the end goal of a cafeteria is to have a place where employees can be themselves, chat and communicate during their break. That’s a mission that we take very seriously. That’s why we believe in Free Food for employees.
A typical Totem set-up for 150 people costs €550/month for an installation worth around €20k
Building a product from scratch is key if you really want to fundamentally change a market. I really admire how Payfit is doing that for payroll, for example.
We at Totem are trying to bring similar innovations to the office food market:
- an employee price model ⚙️ that makes ordering easy and office food scalable. You will always have a clear idea of your budget per employee.
- algorithms 👾 to always suggest the best equipment, products and level of service according to your needs, making our service as affordable and efficient as possible.
- you can manage several cafeterias or floors independently using the same software ✅ You can manage, say, a 1000-employee building with 7 cafeterias while having a clear budget.
We decided to build our back-end totally from scratch too, in order to understand every possible way we can optimize our stock management and specific operations to make our service as smoothly as possible. We use algorithms, we track consumption and run product analyses to improve our logistics each week. By the way, if you are a software developer wanting to solve real problems like logistics or making a better cafeteria experience, please look at our job posts here ;-).
Totem is only at the beginning of the adventure and I would love to hear your feedback at rafael@thetotem.co!
Wanna help Totem?
You are an employee? The healthy revolution can happen in your company too! Share this article with your Facility Manager, Boss or Colleagues ;-)
You are an Office Manager? We would love to hear from you at hello@thetotem.co. If you want a cafeteria, there are only 8 (Update: 4😃) Cafeterias left for November here!
You want to visit our amazing 1600 m2 Cafeteria Showroom and Warehouse in Pantin, just 5 minutes away from Paris on Metro line 7? Send an email to nathalie@thetotem.co
Wanna just hear from us? We have a blog and a newsletter here.
Totem was founded 2 years ago, operates in Paris, has 16 employees and runs 80+ cafeterias for companies like Google, Apple, Deloitte and Payfit. Totem raised €1M in April 2018 with Samaipata Ventures, Kima Ventures and Tekton Ventures. Totem aims at making office cafeterias healthier, efficient and accessible to any company.
