What are you talking about?
That makes it simpler.
You and your colleague can introduce yourselves to new hires. Tactfully offer some food you keep available. Keep a bag of food items in your locker or car. Be clear it’s just until they get their first check.
What you’re wanting to do is a really nice gesture.
Providing food could be seen by the IRS as additional income. And what happens if someone gets sick from the food?
Sorry, I forgot to do a quote. I’m talking about the people who stand on street corners or in highway medians with a sign.
You have balance the nutritional inadequacy of salt and carb heavy snacks meals with the fact that 20 somethings have pretty rugged metabolisms.
You can get 16-20 packs of cup of noodles snacks for pennies each at warehouse stores or on Amazon. You can get day old bread and peanut butter for reasonable prices as well. While your heart is in the right place I will predict that whatever food you get will vanish much more quickly than you anticipate as some people will pork out at work to economize elsewhere or smuggle out snacks to eat later or feed family and friends.
If someone is living on the margins this is going to be SOP. Free food is not going to hang around. You will quickly get pissed at the loss, piggery and the expense and stop the exercise.
Employer-provided meals can be taxable income for the employee. I’m not saying that’s the case for the OP or for you, but it is something to rule out.
I don’t know where you are so the options might be limited but if these people really don’t have enough money for food then you might suggest they go to food pantries. Or, if they are too proud to do that perhaps the pantries will let you obtain some food that you can then offer at work and/or put some in bags for them to take home.
I would suggest food stamps (SNAP) but I’m aware of how low ones income must be before they are eligible for SNAP and there can be a gap where one makes too much for SNAP but not quite enough to eat nutritiously AND afford rent, utilities, etc.
IMO giving food to coworkers is a bad idea. At first they will be very appreciative. And then a few days later they will feel entitled to it.
These people are adults. They need to act like adults. Part of being an adult is figuring out how to provide food for yourself. It is not difficult to do. Any adult claiming they “don’t have enough money for food” is either lying or has extremely screwed up priorities.
I have to admit I was trying to figure out the OP’s scenario. Where is “production line” factory work in the US that is paying “a fair wage” have a bunch of 20 somethings starving between paychecks? Something here doesn’t make sense unless the OP’s “fair wage” = minimum wage which is a bit unusual for factory production type work.
They just started work this week. They haven’t even received a paycheck yet. Who knows how long they’ve been out of work. Wintertime is a hard season for many in Maine.
Perhaps you could bring awareness of this problem to management’s attention. You might be surprised. Management cannot do anything about problems they aren’t aware of.
My husband has that happen to him. He had no food, spent the last of his saving on rent, was working a new job, and had three days to payday. There was a food kitchen/pantry in town, but he didn’t know about it.
He lived on sugar water, stale bread this one bakery put out back, and cucumbers a co-worker kept bringing into work, because his garden was doing well.
My husband just had a bad few months. He went a couple of weeks between leases, and was sleeping in his car, and had his stuff in a storage facility, which was expensive. He had very little in savings. He had a good job lined up, but it didn’t start for a couple of weeks, and then it was two weeks before he got a paycheck.
He was a student, he had a falling out with his parents, and his grades fell below what he needed to keep his financial aid, and he lost his Pell grant as well. He couldn’t go to his parents for money as a result. He eventually made up with his father, but not his mother (they’re divorced).
He got back on his feet, eventually finished school, and FWIW, he was only 20 when all this happened to him.
So stuff does happen. All his friends were 19 & 20. No one was in a position to lend him money-- most of them lived in dorms-- no one even really had food or a place for him to crash, and I think this may even have hit over winter break when a lot of his friends went back home anyway. I hadn’t met him yet.
All in all, the ordeal lasted about three weeks, but he didn’t know at the time it would be that quick. He’d found a place to live he could afford, and paid the rent, which seemed worth it, even though it left him broke. He said he was thinking he had flour and baking powder, and then couldn’t find them. If he’d had them, he could have eaten fried dough.
Well, it was a long time ago.
AFAICT from the OP’s description, “a few days later” the coworkers in question will get a paycheck, so they can buy their own food.
I agree with other posters that if the OP wants to do this (and it’s a very nice gesture IMHO), it will work better as an individually targeted “welcome-gift goody bag” than as a general “here’s the food we leave around, help yourself”.
Probably the way to set it up so that it comes across as more collegial “welcome goody bag for new hire” than “handout of groceries for pitiable starving poor person” or “unlimited free food for everybody” is to include a couple gift certificates to local places, maybe some homemade/garden stuff and/or local specialties. Then you could have some handy lunch staples in brown bags labeled “Monday”, “Tuesday”, etc.
AFAICT you want to send the message “I packed you some lunches and other goodies because we want you to feel welcome here” rather than “you poor thing, here’s some food”. So make it a little less basic and more intriguing rather than food-pantry-ish.
First, I do believe that you will have people that don’t need the help eating the free food, simply because it’s free. I’ve read enough threads here about people stealing each others lunch out of the work refrigerator to even try to believe otherwise. 
If you don’t go with a “welcome goody bag,” then I really think your best bet is to get a big crockpot and make food to bring in. Something filling enough that they don’t go hungry, but not enticing enough to make the rest of the people eager to get in on it.
Spaghetti would be a good choice.
2 - 3 cans of vegetable beef soup (or something similar) with either rice or egg noodles.
Beans are cheap, but I’m not sure I’d want too many co-workers filled up with beans in a hot factory. :eek:
I’ve been that person waiting for my first paycheck. For those not understanding the situation, it goes like this. (I worked at a restaurant, and this is how it happened to me.) Most jobs will hold your first paycheck. At the job I had, the new work week started on Friday, and payday was every Tuesday.
I’ll use this month as my example. If you got hired on Wed, Feb 1, then you have two days pay on that check. You don’t get paid the next payday, (the 7th,) because you have to wait a week. You get to pick up that two day paycheck on Tuesday the 14th. And now you’ve waited half the month to get about $100 for that two days.
Even on the assumption that a factory worker makes more than a restaurant worker; all of my utilities are due before the 14th of the month. So the person would already be late on them, and probably needs to make at least a partial payment. They’ve driven to and from work for two weeks; that means the gas tank needs filled. There’s only two more paychecks until rent is due.
Careful budgeting can only do so much.
Banana Fever hits Maine!
I bought a case of Ramen for work. I cook the noodles without the “seasoning packet” and give the noodles to my African Grey as an occasional treat. The Ramen is in the “help yourself” cupboard, and I was surprised to see people eating it as a snack.
Many (most?) companies pay “in arrears,” meaning they owe you for work done up to that pay date. Depending on individual situation, it could be a couple of weeks before these folks see a dime.
Snack foods are incredibly expensive in single servings. It would probably be much, much cheaper to find a nearby resident who will come in and cater a simple hot meal everyday with a rotating menu, like mac and cheese and a salad. There are plenty of stay-at-homes who would be delighted to get the few bucks you’d pay for such a service.
I once worked in a canning factory where a lot of employees were itinerants living in the bunkhouse. There was a canteen with absolutely delicious food, with rotation of just one dish on each day’s menu, take it or leave it.
Back in my retail days I wasn’t desperate for money, but I definitely was hurting for it.
My Target would always have bread, jelly and PB in the breakroom for its employees. I had a sammitch almost every day I was there. Could I have afforded my own meals during my breaks? Yeah. Could I have made a lunch at home and brought it in? Yeah. But did knowing that I could save just a little bit of money every day make a huge difference in my attitude? You bet.
This is a nice thing you’re doing. You don’t have be destitute to appreciate or need a free meal. My suggestion is PB and J material. It’s cheap, easy to make and stock, and goes a loooong way.
Something similar happened to me when I was 18. I lived for a week on ketchup sandwiches, with the ketchup courtesy of McDonald’s ketchup packages and the bread thanks to a stale bread donation. Days one and two were actually ketchup and cheese sandwiches, and then the cheese was gone.
The 'chupwich - a favorite of my husband’s at that stage in life.
A friend of mine works for a local community college and they have an issue with food scarcity in their students. She goes to Costco and buys huge stocks of granola bars, instant oatmeal packs - that sort of thing - that she has in her office that the students know they can come in and grab something.
Rolled oats and cornmeal both cook up quick in a microwave and both are really cheap. I was always a cornmeal (polenta) person myself over ramen or peanut better or the chupwich. Its easy to make, you can add everything from sweet (jam, syrup, sugar) to savory (cheese, vegetables, spaghetti sauce) if you have it to keep it from getting dull. And its very filling.