Brown-bagging it

US: Even well-paid workers are noticing the high cost of food, oil and petrol these days. In the US, one of these high costs is lunch. As a result, many people are switching from expensive midday restaurant meals to traditional brown-bag lunches that they bring from home.

Jessie Snyder, 23, of Atlanta, Georgia, is one of them. Synder, an account executive with a public relations firm, noticed that she was spending $75 to $80 a week on restaurant lunches. “Lunch was the first thing I cut back on,” Snyder told The Wall Street Journal. Now she brings leftovers and sandwiches to the office.

New Yorker Marc Haskell, 47, has also stopped going out for lunch. Instead, he brings a sandwich from home and eats it at his desk, thus saving about $50 a week. Haskell says it has also made him more productive. “Instead of going out for an hour, walking to the place and waiting on line, I can basically eat in 10 to 15 minutes and catch up on some news.”

New Yorker Marc Haskell "I can basically eat in 10 to 15 minutes."

Other workers are visiting company cafeterias more often. David Hauser, chief technology officer at GovVMail Communications in Needham, Massachusetts, says this means more conversations among people from different departments, as well as more project work being done over lunch.

Restaurant owners are not happy about the trend, of course. But one group has benefited: makers of lunch bags. The online firm eBags.com sold 39 per cent more lunch bags and coolers this summer than it did in 2007.