Trays or boxes? The 36-person order that used both.

Questions offices askDo you do individual boxes, or only trays?

Hybrid schedules made the buffet hard to plan. Wednesday it's 30 people, Friday it's 8, and someone always has a dietary line. What you're really trying to do is feed the room without guessing, and still look after the few people who need their own thing.

How one engineering firm did it

An engineering firm downtown orders from us a few times a year. Their fall order was for 36 people.

Most of the room ate from the table: three trays of bulgogi, two of japchae, two of beef fried rice, two of namul.

Three people needed vegan and three wanted bibimbap. So the same order also had three vegan box lunches (rice, mapo tofu, cucumber kimchi) and three bibimbap bowls, each packed on its own and labeled.

Those six picked up the box with their name on it. Everyone else went down the line, and nobody stood at the buffet trying to work out what they could eat.

How to decide

Boxes (dosirak, bibimbap bowls, build-your-own box lunches) are priced per person and labeled by protein. Twelve people get twelve boxes and there are no leftovers. They work well when the headcount moves around, when people eat at their desks, or when someone has a dietary line.

Trays serve 10 and go on a table, which suits parties, all-hands, and any room where people eat together. Give us the headcount and we'll work out how many trays.

Both is where most mixed offices land: trays for the room, boxes for whoever needs one.

The simplest order we've seen was 15 box lunches and one note: "assorted, include one vegetarian, please label." We didn't need anything else.

Next question: Do you set up, or just drop it off?