Companies are actively investing in employee benefits that promote the well-being and financial health of their workplace. Food cards are a great alternative for employees who spend a significant amount of their salary on food that is both affordable and healthy. With companies offering food cards as a benefit, the practice is catching up among professionals. By 2030, the market for meal cards will account for $105.56 Bn, a significant high from $67.91 Bn in 2023, as per a survey by Fortune Business Insights.
If used right, companies can leverage food cards to show that they care about employees’ well-being, saving them significant tax liabilities. However, to maximize the benefits of meal cards, it is critical to select the best food card in India. To help you with your selection, we have listed the top four best food cards available in India.
Let’s discuss them in detail.
Zaggle SAVE Meal Card
Zaggle SAVE Meal card is one of the best food cards in India that provides seamless digitized food allowance benefits without operational overhead. For employees, it offers a convenient and flexible method of using their meal benefits to purchase healthy food. It comes with an advanced platform that empowers companies with a powerful automation workflow to categorise food categories and manage benefits.
Its key features include:
- Zaggle SAVE is the best food card in India as it is a 100% compliant food card that comes with enterprise-grade security
- Manage cards, add funds, change PIN, block/unblock cards with the dedicated mobile app.
- It is a widely-accepted card, which means employees can use it across outlets both online and offline.
Sodexo Meal Card
The Sodexo meal card is a prepaid card that employers offer their employees as a part of the food allowance. These cards can be used to purchase food products, groceries, and non-alcoholic beverages from a variety of stores. The amount loaded into the meal card is deducted from the employee’s compensation. It can also be used in both online and offline stores.
Sodexo cards come with a mobile app that allows you to generate OTP for any type of transaction. Its major features are:
- Sodexo meal card lets you leverage tax deductions available for food allowance.
- It enables you to set a maximum expense threshold to keep spending within budget.
HDFC Bank FoodPlus Card
HDFC Bank, in association with Visa, offers a smart prepaid card that enables employers to allocate food allowance to their employees in a secure manner. The cards are loaded with funds, which employees can use only at predefined merchant categories including fast food stores, confectionery stores, bakeries, dairy product stores, and discount stores. Users can track their usage and manage allowance with the mobile app using this HDFC offering. Its major features are:
- HDFC Bank FoodPlus cards can be used at any store that accepts Visa cards.
- The card can be used only for ready-to-use food items or non-alcoholic beverages.
Improve Employee Experience with Zaggle Zinger
While food cards are gaining popularity among employees, enterprises face a major challenge in offering meal allowance benefits. Companies must accommodate the unique requirements of every employee, which becomes an operational overhead and difficult to manage without errors. That is why you need a Zaggle Zinger Meal Card. What makes it the best food card in India is that it comes integrated with Zaggle SAVE, an automation platform that allows you to provide employee benefits in a seamless manner. Together, they work like an end-to-end payment solution allowing employees to purchase food just like using a debit or credit card. For employers, it offers a highly powerful platform to tailor meal allowances specific to every employee’s needs. You can configure rules to automate fund allocation, approval, and disbursal in a streamlined workflow.
Check out its full capabilities here.
