#1046 2013 · Google (Project M&M, New York office food team) · Corporate wellness / workplace design
Google hid the M&Ms in an opaque jar and employees ate 3.1 million fewer calories
the problem
Free candy sat in clear gravity bins across Google's offices and employees snacked on it constantly
background
Google's famously free food perks included M&Ms dispensed from clear gravity bins scattered throughout its offices, visible and available at all times. By 2012, the company's internal food team had noticed employees were consuming a striking share of their daily calories from the free candy alone, working against Google's own parallel push toward healthier cafeteria offerings, and worried that simply removing a beloved free perk would generate backlash without actually fixing the underlying habit.
Warning labels, healthier snack placement nearby, and general wellness messaging were already part of Google's food program and hadn't meaningfully cut candy consumption, because none of them changed the basic fact that the M&Ms were sitting in plain sight and required zero effort to grab a handful of.
what everyone would do
The available levers were removing the candy entirely, which risked employee backlash over losing a beloved perk, or adding health warnings and nutrition messaging near the bins, which asked employees to consciously override a habit every single time they walked past — a strategy that competes with willpower and reliably loses over months of repetition.
what they saw
Google did not ban the candy or shame anyone for eating it — it just made the candy require a decision to seek out, while healthy snacks stayed one glance away in clear jars.
the move
Google's food team ran a seven-week test in its New York office: the M&Ms weren't removed or restricted, they were simply moved out of clear gravity bins into opaque containers, while healthier snacks like dried fruit and nuts stayed visible in clear glass jars nearby.
why it works
Most workplace snacking isn't a deliberate choice weighed against alternatives, it's a low-effort reflex triggered by something visible and within arm's reach. By keeping the M&Ms fully available but opaque, Google didn't remove the option, it removed the visual cue that triggers the reflex — an employee has to actively remember the candy exists and choose to open the jar, converting an automatic grab into a small deliberate act. Because the healthy snacks stayed visible in clear jars, the same reflex that used to trigger candy consumption now triggers reaching for what's easiest to see, which is no longer the candy.
the payoff
Over seven weeks in its New York office, 3,000 employees ate 3.1 million fewer M&M calories once the candy moved into opaque jars.
where it breaks
The effect depends on the item still being genuinely available — true restriction (locking it away, charging for it) triggers a different psychology of scarcity and resentment that this mild-friction approach avoids. It also only works when a visible, low-friction alternative exists nearby to absorb the redirected reflex; hiding the candy with nothing appealing left in plain sight would likely just relocate the seeking behavior rather than reduce it.
what came after
The experiment, dubbed 'Project M&M' internally, became one of Google's most widely cited internal behavioral-design case studies and fed directly into 'Choice Architecture' guidelines the company applied to cafeteria and snack-room layouts globally — visibility and reach-distance, not availability, became the default lever Google's food team reached for first.
references
- [1]Google Study Gets Employees to Stop Eating So Many M&MsTIME, 2013newsfeed.time.com
- [2]The Google Diet: Search Giant Overhauled Its Eating Options to 'Nudge' Healthy ChoicesABC News, 2013abcnews.com