Editor's note: This is an opinion piece about workplace culture and the ritual of sharing birthday cake. It was prompted by the public debate around comments made by Professor Susan Jebb about food in offices; the argument below is Reshmi's view, not a claim that employers are literally coordinating to remove cake.
A cake appears in the office. For a few minutes, work stops. The birthday person cuts the first slice and colleagues gather around. That small pause is why office cake matters to me: not because anyone needs cake at 3pm, but because shared food can create an easy social moment in the working day.
The debate is bigger than the sponge
Critics of office treats reasonably point out that the food environment can influence what people eat. My objection is to treating an occasional shared birthday cake as though it has only a nutritional function. A workplace celebration can also be social, voluntary and enjoyable.
Different workplaces have different food traditions, and it would be silly to pretend there is one universal office-cake culture. But across many teams, food is one of the ways people mark birthdays, departures, launches and other milestones.
Efficiency is not the only measure
Modern workplaces have good reasons to care about productivity, health and inclusion. They also need room for human interaction. My view is that removing every spontaneous treat would not, by itself, solve the much larger questions around employee health and wellbeing. Nor should anyone feel pressured to eat cake simply because it is there.
The better answer is choice: celebrate people, offer food thoughtfully, make it easy to decline, and remember that a birthday cake is allowed to be a birthday cake rather than a workplace-health manifesto.
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Reshmi xoxo
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