Nobody likes a hangry co-worker.  One of the trends at Silicon Valley offices and co-working spaces is to offer free snacks out of the break-room.  Napa Nuts could not be happier about this trend

When work spaces are trying to attract workers, and tech companies are recruiting top talent, these little perks tend to add up. Freshly brewed coffee, fruit water, and games or fun areas are all standard perks of these office spaces.  The place where the outstanding co-working spaces pull ahead from the places that just hit the minimums is the snack room. The real effects of high quality snacks increasing productivity at the workplace may not be studied in academia at the moment, but we are pretty sure people like free food.

Food education has made a radical leap in the past few years.  Most people are now moving toward healthier choices. Modern tech company snack rooms are putting kombucha on tap more frequently than sodas.  Snacks are also moving towards non-GMO, gluten-free, products and away from processed foods. Napa Nuts has been on top this trend for a while.

We think that there are a few key items that every snack room should have.  Here is our rationale:

Nuts

Nuts are filling.  They are full of healthy fats that sate appetites quickly.  We do our best to stock lots of California Grown nuts like pistachios, pecans, walnuts, and almonds.  

We are really happy with roasted and salted pistachios out of the shell. These nuts taste fantastic. They appeal to those cravings for salt and crunch without resorting to potato chips. The best part is that nobody needs to clean up the shell!

Another great option is raw California Pecans.  These are really underrated. They are fantastic morning additions to oatmeals, cereals, and waffles.  They are a really healthy mid-day snack as well. These are most commonly eaten raw, so they can feel more like a health food.

Dried Fruit

Fresh fruit is amazing, but hard to stock correctly without items getting over-ripe and then thrown out.  Ultimately, nobody wants to waste food. Dried fruit has much more shelf stability. If stored properly, dried fruit can last months in the snack room.  We typically eat all of it quickly, so we don’t know exactly how long.

We recommend honey pluots.  These are one of our best kept secrets.   Some people will probably not know that this is an apricot and plum hybrid.  These pluots have the sweetness of stone fruit that you can get all year long.  These are a quick fix to feeling run down. The natural sugars are a quick pick-me-up that will give people energy to get through the afternoon.

The other crowd pleaser is our Gourmet Berry Mix.  This is a proprietary blend of cranberries, flavored cranberries, blueberries, cherries and raisins.  There is an incredible mix of flavors which has something for all tastes. This works really well sprinkled on toast with peanut butter, as an add-on to oatmeal, or as a standalone snack.

Chocolates

Chocolate snacks are not necessarily the first choice of nutritionists.  However, there are many recent studies about the health benefits of the flavonoids present in high quality dark chocolate.  We have high quality dark chocolate covering nuts and dried fruit.  

Our sea salt chocolate cashews are a real crowd pleaser.  The San Francisco tech company whose snack room we stock, went through a lot of these.  They ate 100o’s of pounds over just a few months.

Our other recommendation are the chocolate Razzcherries.  While razzcherries are not a real fruit, the raspberry juice infused cherry center of a dark chocolate bite is amazing.  There is a great blend of flavors with some chewy sweetness at the center. These are also great to bring to parties.

Bulk Trail Mixes

If you want the best of all worlds, trail mix is your answer.  We have the ability to custom blend mixes to make sure there is the right amount of nuts, dried fruit and chocolate in our mixes.  We want to make sure we each bite has the right flavor profile and mouth feel. We do have a former chef on staff to make sure all of our trail mixes can officially be gourmet.

As a supporter of sustainability, we also recommend buying nuts, dried fruit and snacks in bulk.  Having some kind of reusable container to scoop into is a huge help to start saving the planet. Please buy wholesale and save the office a bit of money at the same time.