Edenred and Gecina are working to transform the lunch break experience with the “virtual canteen”

Gecina, Europe’s leading office real estate company, and Edenred, the world leader in specific-purpose payment solutions, are joining forces to make the lunchtime experience more flexible for YouFirst brand clients, thanks to the Ticket Restaurant experience.

Gecina is working to enrich and add value to shared dining spaces in its office buildings, in line with market developments that reflect demand from employees for greater variety, as well as the trend for working from home and, more generally, the need for more flexible dining times and places.

Gecina’s ambition is to reorganize the foodservices available to its clients by creating shared dining spaces that will benefit its entire network of buildings. Gecina aims to offer its clients access to a far wider selection of dining services that are aligned with their individual tastes and expectations, and accessible throughout the day, even when they are working from home. This “virtual canteen” project, open to all YouFirst clients, will be one of the brand’s standout features on the market.

Edenred’s digital solution enables users to eat lunch when and where they want, from the office to restaurants or at home. They can also make contactless payments using their smartphone in any of the 220,000 Ticket Restaurant member establishments or have their food delivered thanks to Edenred’s partnerships with over 70 meal delivery platforms in France. The ultimate goal with this alliance between the two companies is to provide the 100,000 users of Gecina’s YouFirst brand living spaces with special access to these digital services.

These talks are aligned with the strategy of both groups to offer a range of fluid, digital food and meal services that fit perfectly with new consumer trends and new ways of working. They may be extended in the future to include other Edenred services in the mobility, incentive and corporate payment sectors.

Méka Brunel, Gecina’s Chief Executive Officer: “With its network of buildings in Paris’ best locations, Gecina can offer a global foodservice solution for its YouFirst brand clients. Tomorrow, what will be important for our clients will not be to have a traditional canteen, but instead a virtual canteen that will radically change the quality of their day-to-day experience in terms of the product selection, flexible eating times and places, and of course, possibilities for delivery and payment. Forming an alliance like this with Edenred, the world leader in the field, is a tremendous opportunity for Gecina”.