Prague, Feb 2 (CTK) – More than two-fifths of Czechs bring their home-made lunches to work not only to save money, but also because they do not like meals in restaurants and want to have under control what they eat, daily Pravo wrote on Thursday.
On the other hand, one-fifth of employees, mainly office staff, almost always take lunch in a restaurant.
Pravo refers to surveys conducted by the the Food, Profesia and other firms in the past five years. They confirm that up to 45 percent of employees have long eaten only what they bring from home at work.
There are several reasons for this trend in the Czech Republic.
“Many firms have closed their cafeterias, while not many suitable restaurants with reasonable prices are in their surroundings. Besides, people can considerably save money by bringing lunch boxes from home, mainly now that prices in restaurants have been rising,” financial adviser Frantisek Machacek has said.
Twenty lunches a month cost at least 2000 crowns, Pravo adds.
Moreover, many people do not like meals in restaurants, saying they are based on semi-finished products and contain a lot of fat.
The way of having lunch at work strongly depends on people’s profession. Office workers lunch in a restaurant more often than shop-assistants and manual workers, Pravo says.
Eating in restaurants is also supported by subsidised meal coupons that employers provide for some 1.3 million employees in the Czech Republic, Pravo writes.
It adds that door-to-door delivery of meals is also booming. More and more Czechs order meals to their offices since these services are relatively cheap and fast.
Company canteens where people can buy snacks still exist at some workplaces, Pravo adds.
Some managers criticise the practice of lunching out during working time. They say employees spend much longer time in a restaurant than the 30 minutes or one hour set for lunch officially and afterwards they relax rather than deal with company tasks.
However, health care and diet experts are of a different view. They point out that working without natural breaks and stretching the body considerably lowers performance, Pravo writes.
