A new study has found the importance of sharing a meal with your co-workers. Aside from developing better relationships, eating together also helps improve work performance among individuals.

Medical Daily reports a study conducted by food scientists at Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab says workers who eat together, work better.

"Eating together is a more intimate act than looking over an Excel spreadsheet together," said Cornell University's School of Applied Economics and Management assistant professor Kevin Kniffin, one of the study's authors. "That intimacy spills back over into work. From an evolutionary anthropology perspective, eating together has a long, primal tradition as a kind of social glue. That seems to continue in today's workplaces."

For the study, the researchers interviewed firefighters at 50 different firehouses in one city in a span of 15 months. Kniffin and his team then asked 395 supervisors from these firehouses to rate their firefighters' performance on a scale of 0 to 10, as well as how often they ate together on a 4-day workweek.

Their findings show that firehouses with employees that ate together significantly had higher ratings on their performance than those who didn't. Based on their interviews, the researchers also found that group meals were actually an important activity during their daily shifts.

According to one firefighter who starts his shift at 6 p.m., he would often eat dinner twice - the first one at home and another when he goes to work - to avoid being disrespectful to his wife and his coworkers. "To me, that's a good example of the importance of the group," said Kniffin. "It's comparable to his family."

Researchers suggest that companies may find improved work performances from their employees if they invest in better dining areas to cater breakfasts, lunches or dinners.

This study was published in the journal Human Performance