Drop by any office a couple hours after lunch and you’re bound to spot at least one person on the verge of becoming an office zombie. Slowed movement, sleepy eyes and the suppressed yawns are dead giveaways. Don’t worry– it’s just the mid-afternoon slump.
There are several simple options for the worker hitting the slump:
Take a nap. Every office doesn’t offer napping pods or an environment where napping is a workable solution. If the slump isn’t addressed in other ways, they may just doze off at their desks or make errors until the slump has passed.
Grab a cup of coffee. Coffee is an easy pick-me-up for some folks, but it can interfere with one’s ability to fall asleep at night. It’s smarter to have coffee before noon and not risk interference with the sleep schedule.
Eat something. Healthy snacking raises the blood sugar, giving staff a much-needed boost to get through the slump. Improve productivity with a nutritious, exciting refreshment to finish the day strong.
Healthy Snacking Options Made Easy
At Orchard At The Office, we strive to help you conquer the mid-afternoon crash. Since 2010, we’ve provided fresh fruit for companies of all sizes across Texas, expanding our fruit delivery service across the contiguous 48 states. The burst of energy from a fresh piece of fruit can help people productively push through to quitting time.
Of course, there are times when you hanker for something else. Maybe you want something crunchy, nutty, savory or chewy. That’s where the new Orchard Snack Box comes into play. Our variety of nutritious, pre-packaged snacks gives staff grab-and-go options to beat the slump. Bars, nuts, jerky, fruit chews, fruit crisps, savory and crunchy treats by popular brands can provide the perfect pick-me-up.
Not only does the Orchard Snack Box help reverse the mid-afternoon slump and kick that zombie feeling, but it also saves time that your staff would spend trekking to the corner store. The snacks we offer provide healthy energy without the empty calories and sugar crash that cakes and cookies cause.
What’s inside an Orchard Snack Box?
Orchard Snack Box comes in four sizes: 60, 75, 150 and 300 pieces. Each delivery contains a different variety of snacks from our thoughtfully curated snack lineup, but you will always receive approximately 33% bars, 37% crispy, crunchy snacks, 8% jerky, 10% fruit, and 12% nuts.
There are vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free and non-GMO options in every box. Boxes ship weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or as a one-time purchase. The thoughtfully-curated mix of snacks changes every week to keep employees’ taste buds engaged. There are no contracts or long-term commitments required.
Fuel your staff with naturally sweet, low-glycemic nut bars, organic, non-GMO whole-grain goodies, or craveable, lean and clean protein sticks. From nutritious breakfast bars to spicy, savory protein-packed crisps, everyone will find a favorite. Become the office hero when you unbox the Orchard Snack Box. Let us help you prevent the office zombie workpacolypse.
We don’t sell our fresh fruit delivery service so much as offer it. “Would you like fresh fruit delivered to your office?” After that, it’s simply a matter of sorting out the details. ORCHARD At The OFFICE is proud to provide fresh fruit delivery to businesses throughout the Dallas / Fort Worth area. It’s what we do and it’s all we do. Our singleness of purpose gives us the ability to focus on providing the highest quality service to the best of our ability.
FRESH FRUIT SELLS ITSELF
Our fruit baskets consist primarily of “the ABCs” – apples, bananas, and clementines. Bananas are the most popular fresh fruit, not only in Texas but in all of the United States. Americans consume an average of 13.5 pounds per person! The apples we use are primarily JAZZ, a cross between Gala and Braeburn with a subtle sweetness and enduring firm texture that satisfies most palates. Of course, we offer a variety of other fresh fruit, including grapes, berries, mangoes, and so on. With the popularity of the ketogenic diet, we’ve also seen a spike in avocado demand and are happy to accommodate.
OFFICES ARE GETTING HEALTHY
In the past decade, one of the major corporate catchphrases has been “wellness programs.” Company-driven initiatives to promote employee health are encouraged and incentivized. In its worksite wellness manual, the Texas Department of State Health Services lists a variety of measures that businesses can take to improve the fitness of their workforce, including health fairs and “healthy food.” This is, of course, where fresh fruit comes in. (For more information on what your company can do, refer to this D Magazine blog post on “Getting The Most From Your Wellness Program.”)
We’re local. As a Texas-based company, we can be attentive to your needs in a way that is simply not possible for any larger operation. We’re your neighbors in DFW and Greater Houston and think of you as such.
Personalized attention. It never benefits us to oversell. We want you to get “the best banana for the buck”. We’ll work with you to get the quantity and variety you want in a mutually-beneficial arrangement.
Simple financial terms. There are never any contracts, so you can try us out with no commitment. We’re certain our fresh fruit and obsessive customer care will keep you coming back. We’ll work with you to provide the service you need. Payments can be made by check (paper or electronic) or credit card.
ANY BUSINESS, ANY SIZE.
Some of the offices we serve have a staff of 5. Others have a workforce of 3,000. Therefore, we’ve developed options that will accommodate any office. While our most common order is a weekly delivery of a Premium Large Basket which holds 50+ pieces of fruit, we’ll gladly deliver smaller orders such as our Mini Basket (16+ pieces), all the way up to our “Fortune 600 Special”, a bulk special that will satisfy hundreds of staffers. Whatever your needs, we’ve got you covered.
Today, we’re playing 20 Questions with Kevin Long and Chris Buchanan of the Richardson-based office fruit delivery service ORCHARD At The OFFICE, who have served the Dallas/Fort Worth area since 2010.
Q: Describe your company in fifteen words or less.
BUCHANAN: We deliver fresh fruit to Metroplex offices.
LONG: That’s it. Seven words.
BUCHANAN: Do we win anything?
LONG (laughing): I don’t think it’s a competition.
Q: Where did the name “ORCHARD At The OFFICE” come from?
LONG: I wanted a name that told a story, that gave a clear mental image and conveyed a journey. Here, in this basket of fruit, you have an orchard…right here at your office! It’s worked well for us.
Q: Give us a Fun Fruit Fact we may not know.
BUCHANAN: If you took every fruit on the planet, laid them side by side, and attempted to name them all aloud, you’d irritate people. Even Harlan Pepper would tell you to stop naming fruits.
LONG: One thing I like to show people is how to peel a banana from the bottom, the way monkeys do.
BUCHANAN: And when you do it that way, you don’t get the phloem.
LONG: Right. That’s the technical name for the stringy matter inside a banana.
BUCHANAN: I should have made that my fact. (sighs) I had my chance, but it’s gone forever.
Q: Speaking of bananas, what’s this “bananigans” thing all about?
LONG: It’s really a state of mind, a reminder that health and happiness go together. Whether it’s the “banana smile” or juggling clementines, moments of silliness provide levity that add dimension to a workday.
Bananigans at D Magazine
Q: You describe yourself as a “local business”. What exactly does this mean to you?
BUCHANAN: Well, the company was founded right here in the Metroplex – Richardson, specifically. Our home office is here, our staff lives here, and our fruit is sourced from here. While it may be grown elsewhere – I’m certainly not aware of any pear orchards in Rowlett or Euless – the lifeblood of this business is Dallas. These are our friends and neighbors we’re serving.
Q: What’s the most popular fruit in Dallas?
BUCHANAN: Bananas are by far the favorite. We sell tons every week – and that’s not a figure of speech.
LONG: Yeah, bananas are the most popular, but whenever I’m in a conversation with someone, I’ll often ask them what their favorite fruit is. So many times, people say mangoes! I’m not sure why that is, because I don’t see nearly as many people actually eating a mango, but that’s what they say.
BUCHANAN: They could be lying.
LONG: Yeah, they may be lying.
Q: So what’s your favorite fruit?
BOTH (in unison): Mangoes.
Q: What are the smallest and largest offices you serve?
BUCHANAN: There’s one business with only three people, but they’re very dedicated to healthy living, so they go through our 16-piece Mini Office Basket every week. As the Metroplex is the home to so many large-scale operations, we’ve created options for everyone, such as our “Fortune 600 Special”. This helps us serve companies with over 1,500 employees.
Q: What do you do with any surplus fruit?
LONG: When we’re doing really well, there’s barely anything left over at the end of the week! When there is, we donate it primarily to two organizations: the Harvest Project, and the Samaritan Inn in McKinney.
Q: Tell us more about the Harvest Project.
BUCHANAN: Harvest Project is an amazing organization. It was started in 2014 by Danae Gutierrez, who has served on the DISD board and is truly an inspiring individual. It’s a community project that provides fresh produce to families in need at no cost. They’ll provide fruits and vegetables, give recipes and instructions where appropriate, even teach them to shop for bargains. Like Ms. Gutierrez, Harvest Project represents real, grass-roots action to promulgate positive change in Dallas.
Danae Gutierrez of Harvest Project
Q: What do you suggest Dallas can do as a whole to stay more fit?
LONG: Eat more fruit, of course!
BUCHANAN: Yes. Beyond that, though, we don’t make nutritional suggestions. We leave the dietary recommendations to those far more qualified. Besides, there’s very little consensus and we try to stay out of the fray!
Q: Understood. That said, are there some more pragmatic tips you can suggest?
BUCHANAN: Some things are fairly straightforward. We did contribute a blog post to D Magazine awhile ago with some basic suggestions for how to stay healthy at the office, five minutes at a time.
Q: Along the same lines, how did y’all get involved with the Dallas Running Club?
LONG: That started in 2016 with one of our administrators, Leah Hinton. She’s friends with Erin and Sean Jett, who served on the DRC Board at the time. They were looking for a business willing to donate bananas to their races, and since we believe very strongly in the maintenance of a vital running community for Dallas, we’re happy to help! It’s a great partnership.
BUCHANAN: Yeah, the Dallas Running Club means a lot to us. My wife is an athlete who has logged more miles than I care to count and the whole history of the DRC, Tal Morrison, and White Rock Lake as a sort of “running sanctuary” are fascinating to me. It really feels like we’re part of something special.
Orchard At The Office provides bananas for Dallas Running Club races
Q: What are the trendy fruits right now?
LONG: Avocados are the biggest trending fruit right now. Last year, America spent more importing avocados than any other fruit, including bananas. That is an entirely new development, and our sales reflect the popularity of avocados.
BUCHANAN: Definitely. I’d also have to say that clementines, also known as “Halos” or “Cuties”, do extremely well. There’s actually several different varieties of citrus we conveniently call “clementines”, and they’re all delicious and have lots of mouth-watering appeal!
LONG: Chris handles our marketing, as you can tell.
Q: What’s the most unusual fruit you’ve ever sold?
LONG: Durian!
BUCHANAN: Oy vey. Here we go…
LONG: He hates durian, but I love it. Durian’s an Asian fruit that looks like a giant pod – about the size of jackfruit but even more spiky – and when you open it, the edible fruit almost has a banana pudding consistency.
BUCHANAN: And there all resemblance ends.
LONG: It does have this very complex, powerful aroma. I get why people don’t like it, but I find it fascinating. Eating durian is an event!
BUCHANAN: So’s a tsunami. All I’m saying is that there’s a reason it’s banned on Singapore Rapid Mass Transit. It’s exponential: it starts off smelling like a field of chives, then comes the sulfurous essence, then what can only be described as a “rotting” smell kicks in. Then it’s like they all compete with one another to see which can fill the room quicker. And that pretty much describes the flavor.
LONG: Hey, I’m not saying everyone will like them. More for me, that’s what I say!
Q: Talk about the “seven banana myth”.
BUCHANAN: OK, I learned about this from Karl Pilkington…and when I say “learned”, it was clearly some sort of nonsensical urban myth. The idea was something to the effect that if you ate more than six bananas in a day, you’d have a lethal potassium overdose. It’s been thoroughly debunked in a number of studies, of course, but like Twinkies or zombies, misinformation has no shelf life – it’s always staggering back from its grave to eat the brains of the living.
Q: From a delivery standpoint, what’s your favorite building in Dallas?
LONG: I’ve always liked delivering to the Comerica Bank Tower. The freight dock is efficient, the security staff is courteous and professional, and the entire building is very attractive and easy to get around.
Q: Are there things you’ve learned about Dallas as a result of delivering fruit here that you didn’t know before?
BUCHANAN: Well, I’ve certainly gotten to know all the local structures and the business that dwell within them. I used to go to Klyde Warren Park, for instance, and I’d look around and think “oh, there’s that cool new building with the blue glass, and there’s the one with the D Magazine logo” and so on. Now I’m thinking of the building names, and exactly which business is in there, and which ones are our customers and which ones will be.
Q: What kind of music could we expect to hear at ORCHARD At The OFFICE headquarters?
LONG: That totally depends on who’s in the office! You could hear everything from ambient to metal. I like to have music going to keep the brain’s alpha waves going. But every once in awhile, I’ll mix it up with some Tool or Van Halen.
BUCHANAN: I gravitate toward jazz fusion or any music that Outcry Theatre might employ in one of their amazing shows. I love the music of Tori Amos and Sigur Rós, and that sometimes creates problems as I find myself listening to it a bit too much and getting all emotional and weepy.
Q: Sell me fruit. Right now.
BUCHANAN: Our fruit really sells itself. Quite often, if we make people aware that there’s this office fruit delivery service in Dallas, that concept generates interest.
LONG: Everybody loves fresh fruit. “Would you like a banana?”
“We deliver fresh fruit to offices,” I say when asked by friends and family about ORCHARD At The OFFICE. The key to our success, the idea which has made us the largest office fruit delivery service in Texas since our 2010 inception, is that we focus on doing one thing in a manner that exceeds expectations. We provide fresh fruit for offices. Do we also provide pretzels, coffee, nuts? No. Fresh fruit is what we do and it’s all we do – so we do it better than anyone else.
This idea is, of course, not without precedent: most businesses start off in a particular niche, and many flourish if they can function at an expert level. In fact, one of the main perils of business is to stagger off into “similar territory”, only to find the Core Competency they’d identified requires a bit more effort than they’d imagined.
An example with local ties: a restaurant franchise built around a single food item – chicken fingers – might leave Shark Tank bigwigs rolling their eyes. Yet Raising Cane’s has taken this business model of a simplified menu and parlayed it into a billion-dollar concept with over 400 locations and three headquarters (including one in Plano). That’s right: two guys had a billion-dollar idea involving serving, not chicken, but a very specific cut of chicken. Doing one thing well can pay off.
ORCHARD At The OFFICE, while not in the “three comma club” (yet!), has also learned there are details involved in supplying fresh fruit to hundreds of offices throughout Texas that one can’t merely bluff their way through by chucking cheap (or imperfect) produce at. For instance, a company that provides vending services including all manner of snacks and beverages to businesses is liable to think “well, we’re in the building anyway – we may as well sell bananas and apples”, not realizing there are basic quality, perishability, and presentation issues that are going to be problematic. Many times we’ve heard from the unfortunate office which got locked into a contract with such a service provider, only to receive mealy, cafeteria-grade Red Delicious apples instead of crisp and flavorful JAZZ, and by the time the employee dissatisfaction with the low-grade bananas becomes apparent, the kitchen area is starting to see a small swarm of fruit flies, ironically infesting the area where the offending vendor proffers their other snacks.
We source the best possible produce and prices that will match our customer’s bottom line, and we’re glad to make accommodations for display, order customization, and payment terms. One of the reasons we decided from the start to never lock our clients into contracts is that we firmly believe fresh fruit sells itself.Superior customer service is only possible if one truly cares, and at ORCHARD At The OFFICE, we’ve found the best way to care is to try to be one thing to all businesses.
If you have an office anywhere in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, whether it’s a staff of five to five thousand, we’ve got a package that’s right for you. Feel free to check out our newly-revamped webpage, https://orchardattheoffice.com , and get signed up for the best fruit delivery near you! We’ll talk to you soon, and we thank you for the opportunity to be of service.
Nature Nate’s Raw Honey packs are the perfect addition to your office fruit delivery! They’re the ideal complement to bananas, peaches, and apple slices. Simply squeeze a bit on with each bite! They’re also perfect for those who like to enjoy oatmeal or tea at the office. Additionally, they’re great for infused water with a squeeze of lemon or lime.
As an addition to our Best of the Best (pictured above) or supplement to our bulk offerings, Nature Nate’s Raw Honey packs that extra punch of flavor that will thrill your staff and keep them working happy and healthy all day long!
Delicious Raw Honey
Nature Nate’s is local – they’re on a farm in McKinney! – and they’re wholly committed to the idea of purity. They keep it real via an all-natural process without pasteurization which ensures that the flavor and nutritional content of the honey is as it was upon creation. For ORCHARD At The OFFICE, being able to offer individual packs of this delicious product as part of our add-on specialties is a testament to the value of partnership. Everybody wins!
The Perfect Complement
So, if you’re a fan of honey as well as fresh fruit such as bananas, plums, apples, pears, nectarines, peaches, and citrus fruits, contact us at 972-295-9091! Whether you are looking for regular fruit delivery to your break room or board room, or you’re having a special event such as a training session or health fair, we are your go-to office fruit delivery specialist in DFW and Greater Houston! With no contracts and easy payment terms, we make healthy snacking simple. Check out our product selections, sign up online…and LIVE WELL!
Delicious water infusion with Nature Nate’s Raw Honey and a squeeze of lemon or lime
