Office Tea-Time Snacks: Stocking the Pantry for Small Teams

In most Indian offices, the 4 pm tea break is sacred. For a small office, a clinic, a shop or a workshop, keeping a jar of good snacks next to the tea makes a bigger difference to the team than it costs.

What to stock

Namkeen is the backbone of an office pantry because it keeps for weeks and almost everyone likes it. Atukula mixture and karam boondi are easy crowd-pleasers. Vamu komulu suits anyone who finds spicy snacks too much. Janthikalu and chakodi add crunch.

Add one sweet for the days that need it: laddu or kaja for a birthday, a box of mixed sweets when a deal closes or someone joins the team.

How much a team goes through

As a rough guide, a team of 10 eats around 1 to 1.5 kg of namkeen a week if it is out every afternoon. Buying 3 or 4 different snacks of about 500 g each and rotating them stops people getting bored of the same jar.

Keeping it fresh

Move snacks into airtight jars rather than leaving packets open on the pantry shelf. Stored that way, namkeen stays crisp for up to 30 days, so a monthly order works well.

Ordering for the office

For regular office orders, ordering by the kilo is the cheapest way to buy. Our bulk orders page has per-kilo rates for teams, events and functions, and festival boxes for staff can be packed and labelled for you.