Welcome to salad club. The first rule of salad club is: you do not talk about salad club. The second rule of salad club is: you DO NOT talk about salad club.

Just kidding, spread the word to your entire office! But if someone yells “stop!”, goes limp, or taps out, then you might have a problem.

If the Fight Club references have you confused about what kind of club I’m advertising, rest assured that salad club does not actually require any sort of rough-housing—besides maybe a little elbowing to get to the good stuff before it’s all gone. In actuality, salad club is a great way to promote a healthy lunch time at your office, an excuse to show off your home garden’s harvest, and a nice way to share a cheap meal.

What is salad club?

A salad club is a group that you form (in your workplace, neighbourhood, or anywhere else you think it could work), and make plans with to create a communal salad for lunch. A date is set (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or however often you’d like), and a signup sheet is put out. Everyone signs up to bring one or a few ingredients. Then on the day of, and a mini salad bar is set up somewhere in the office for all participants to enjoy!

Why start a salad club?

Especially if you’re stuck in the sandwich-and-a-bag-of-chips rut, it’s a great way to encourage health and wellness in the office. It’s also a really cheap lunch that requires minimal effort on your part. Add in the warm fuzzies you get from sharing a healthy meal with others, and it’s a no-brainer that everyone joins up.

How to set up a salad club in your office

Step 1:Find out who’s interested.

Send out a staff-wide email or chat amongst coworkers. The more people you recruit, the larger the salad bar becomes.

Step 2: Decide on a date

To begin, try proposing salad club as a weekly affair. Settle on a day that works for everyone, and let that day be recurring each week to avoid confusion. 

Step 3: Create a signup sheet, and ask staff to sign up for ingredients.

Create a sign up sheet that includes suggestions that staff can simply write their names next to. Or, you can post up a blank sign-up sheet, and staff can write out what they’d like to bring. Whatever works best in your workplace. (We like to do this in a google doc a couple days before salad club!) 

The sign-up sheet should clearly state which day salad club takes place on, where salad will be served, and the meeting time to lay out the spread. Present a deadline for signing up, and ask participants to check how many people have signed up before they leave for the day. That way, they know how much of their ingredient to bring.

Step 4: Meet, serve, and enjoy!

When salad club day finally arrives, lay everything out buffet style. This works well for an office full of dietary preferences, as people can pick and choose what they’d like from the line up. Also make sure to label anything you’ve brought in with multiple ingredients for those with allergies.

Step 5: Clean up, and bring home whatever wasn’t eaten.

Bringing your designated ingredient in your own container will make it easy to pack things up and bring leftovers home. Assuming an ‘everyone’s responsible for packing up their ingredients, and their own dishes’ should ensure that clean up stays simple.

Step 6: Repeat!

It’s not hard to get people in the groove of things once you get going. If there’s interest, designate someone to print out a new sheet each week, or start one online that everyone has access to.