[hueving]

>If you cater meals, some employees will want to skip out and take the salary bump instead, others don't mind losing out on pay for free weekly massages.

This is a false dichotomy. If a company is so broke that offering a few free meals will impact their salary pool, they aren't going to offer the free meals at all. Anecdotally, every company I've worked at that offered free lunch paid more than any of the companies that didn't offer free meals.

[bane]

I'll still trade you 3 "free" meals a day for that money into my salary. I can use that money better, and it's a stronger negotiating point for me at my next job (while total compensation package is not).

[hueving]

The point is that it doesn't work like that. You could make the same argument about all of your office supplies, computers, and office space. "I'll take the extra bump of salary rather than you paying for the office space I will occupy." "Fire the administrative assistant, give us the extra salary, and rotate us all through phone/email/mail company correspondence duty."

They are perks designed to make working there more pleasant and efficient (if you eat there your lunch commute is gone and you are likely to converse with coworkers). They have nothing to do with your compensation.

[bane]

> You could make the same argument about all of your office supplies, computers, and office space.

No you can't. You can't make the argument because one set of things is strictly needed for you to do your job, the other is not.