After studying at Columbia and Harvard University, Emmanuel Steiner began his career in Switzerland.
“There's nothing good about eating,” he would complain. “Take away? Not tasty! Supermarket salad? Too expensive! Restaurant? It takes 2 hours! And worst of all, split over lunch because everyone wants something different. This isn't that!”
Determined to solve the problem, Steiner and his wife, Daniela, co-founded Verpel in 2013, bringing fresh meals from the Michelin-starred chef and farm directly to the corporate office lunchroom. After expanding to over 1,000 offices across Europe, the company expanded to the US in 2023, establishing a shop in New York City, and now serves corporate offices throughout the Tri-State area.
Felfel's rapid growth offers important lessons for CEOs navigating expansion, workplace culture, and the evolving needs of today's workforce. Here, Steiner shares strategies to expand their business and develop high-performance teams. And they share why Great Food is more than an office perk.
Which strategies have led to the company's overgrowth?
When we started Felfel in Switzerland, our mission was clear. It's about revolutionizing workplace food by making high quality, delicious local food easy to access. Our growth comes from a powerful product market fit, an unwavering focus on customer experience and an efficient operational model.
The expansion to the US presented new challenges, but applied the same principles of understanding the needs of workplace leaders, prioritizing quality and maintaining a strong corporate culture.
Our food is sourced locally with the exception of Swiss chocolate and cheese, but we adapted our logistics model to navigate New York traffic, but was able to build on existing technologies, expertise and lessons operating in Europe.
The most important factor for success in overgrowth mode is having a small, agile team with diverse talents and perspectives who are completely immersed in their products and growth. Our headquarters supports critical operational and organizational functions such as finance, HR, technology, and data, allowing you to focus completely on what's most important: customers.
Share your insights into delivering an extraordinary employee experience.
Workplaces are evolving rapidly, and the best companies recognize that employee experience is not just a perk. It's about creating an environment where people feel valuable, connected and inspired.
As employees realize they want more than just an office, more leaders prioritize culture, health and flexibility. Food plays a bigger role than ever, promoting collaboration in the world of hybrid and RTO and enhancing team culture.
At Felfel, we look firsthand how well-designed work experiences can lead to increased engagement and performance. When people feel good and eat good at work, they do their best.
Thanks to the services we provide to our clients, we aim to always think about making our office a special place for our team, and many of our product innovations, including the coffee bar concept, came from these in-house products that we first began to provide our workforce.
You want to say that creating a supportive work environment and being successful-driven is not mutually exclusive. Can you explain in detail?
High-performance cultures and supportive work environments are not the opposite, they hold hands. When people feel trusted and valued, they are more enthusiastic and motivated. At Felfel, we raised high expectations while giving teams the freedom to work in their own unique ways.
We balance performance and happiness with excellent food, flexibility and fostering a strong, positive team culture. Success-oriented people enjoy working with other success-oriented people and interact with these individuals who are excited to come to the office every morning.
What is Felfel's future?
I've just started. Felfel NYC's rapid growth is evidence of better workplace food demand and believes it has great potential to eventually expand to other US markets.
However, it is very important not to scale too quickly, especially when using food, as quality always comes first. Every batch of food produced daily by the partner is tasted by the forager before being shipped to the client. Before establishing a new market, it is certainly essential to have local partnerships, proper procedures and support to maintain and exceed unique quality standards.
