If you currently work in an office or have ever worked in one, are/were there any banned foods?

Yes, anything with peanut or tree nuts, as one employee was fatally allergic to it.

Never, but I don’t think it’s a bad idea. Especially when the break room is close to the office space. In Asia there’s a fruit called Durian which is not allowed on the bus it smells so bad.

Not a specific food, but my previous job banned all food or drink at your desk as the building had a mouse problem.

No, but a colleague once burnt chestnuts in the microwave and ruined it. The place stunk for days. We’d like to ban her from the break room. :-)

Yes, anything smelly.

@janbb How funny!!!!!!

We had an employee that no matter what she cooked in the microwave, it smelled like Friskies cat food! Nasty! But in general, no, we could bring anything we wanted.

I was burglary detective for 13 years. for twelve of those 13 years, we always had a Christmas party in the detective division. our party amounted to everyone bringing a covered dish from home. we did not exchange gifts. we all looked forward to that one special day in December, until someone complained about the smell of all the good food and they were not invited. our party was for police detectives and the civillian personnell. we never turned anyone down that really wanted to attend and never did. just because this one person complained of having to smell all the extremely great home-cooked food brought in, our Christmas party dinner was cancelled. needless to say, we did not like this person from that day forward. our food was not burned and what this person did was just out of jealousy or spite….whatever. anyway, she was now on our hit list. i signed out a new parking ticket book, just in hopes i would catch this person parked illegaly. did i ever write her a parking ticket? i will never tell. we all missed our Christmas dinner parties and it was all because of one persons sniffer.

We can bring anything we want, although I work in a university not an office. Similar smelly food troubles do occur, but I don’t think there would be anyone who could make or enforce such a rule.

One of my colleagues shared and office with a man who used to open cans of sardines and just eat them at his desk. You’d think not doing that would be somewhat obvious!

Nothing banned here. People make popcorn at all times of the day. The only thing I hate is the stuff that gets left in the fridge that ends up smelling. I sit on the other side of the cube wall from the fridge so I can always tell when it needs cleaned. Someone left shrimp in a sealed container once and it got so bad that it popped the lid off by itself and the shrimp had turned creamy. Yeah, I still had to go look at it. :)

@lfino…....Nooooo We’d periodically go through & clean the frig out. If anything was left in there unclaimed, out it went!

@john65pennington Could you not have moved your feast to another location & still had your get together without the sniffer getting in on it?

@john65pennington this might be presumptive of me, but I’m thinking that if the sniffer had actually spoken to your group about her issues she might have been invited to partake and it would have been a win-win. For some reason that story really ticked me off and not only do I hope she got a parking ticket, I hope she got several!

No office where I have ever worked banned any kind of food whatsoever. I haven’t had an office job for the last twelve years though so I this was long before the publicity about deadly food allergies.

Nope. Although I wish they’d ban popcorn. Well no, that’s not true. I don’t like rules designed to force people to be polite. I wish the one coworker who constantly makes popcorn at least twice a day would just friggin stop it. It smells so nasty.

@jbfletcherfan, I was actually one of the “cleaners”, so that’s how I know about the shrimp. It doesn’t take long for shrimp to go bad. This other girl and I really kind of had a strangely good time cleaning the fridge. I even have my own fridge in my cube, so it wasn’t like I did it because it was ‘my turn’ or anything.

Well, if my company dosn’t like any foods they will remove them from the vending machines. They recently got rid of the popcorn because nobody seemed to know how to pop the stuff without burning it and stinking up the entire office. I don’t understand how so many people can burn up popcorn!

One hotel I worked in once suddenly made us stop carrying Snickers candy bars. The HR director “claimed” that she had just discovered that she had a peanut allergy. But we still carried trail mix with peanuts and stuff with peanut butter in it… that woman was annoying and just liked to do things to be in control of something. Ick.

Supermouse and Fletcher. we had thought about moving our party to another location, but thats difficult to do in the police business. phones still had to answered and the public still given attention,no matter what. to move would have been more trouble than it would have been worth. our chief never banned the food or the smell, it was just one persons complaint that shut everything down. sniffer be gone. she is still there, sorry to say.

@john65pennington It’s sad when one person can spoil the fun & enjoyment of everyone else. A pox on her!!!

I once worked at a place where microwave popcorn was banned because of the smell.

@jpeterson Durian is like Limburger. Smells horrific, but if you can get past the smell it’s delicious. A big, spikey green fruit. Filippinos love them.

Most of us had done duty in Asia, so unusual smells from the microwave we de rigeure. Some of the worst smells were from the “mystery meat” in the mess hall. A new commissary officer changed that problem. It wasn’t banning foods but banning incompetant mess hall supervision that solved the problem.

Is the popcorn thing because people always burn it??

I know in elementary schools, peanuts are usually banned. I do wonder how it goes as the children get older..is it because they have more control and know better to eat someone elses peanut butter sandwich?
I’ve never worked anywhere with any bans on food.

Enough people hated the smell enough in an office where I once worked that fish was verboten. Even tuna fish.

Many places ban microwave popcorn because of the smell. I happen to love the smell, but many times, the butter on the bag burns, but not the popcorn itself, and I can see where that would be annoying. Where Hubby works, they are not allowed to have fish in the microwave, which is a shame, because I cook fish at least 3 times a week, and I have to make sandwiches for his lunch.

I once worked in a office where popcorn was absolutely forbidden (the boss did not like the smell of the butter!)