Here at Restaurant & Café Magazine, we want to provide foodservice businesses with practical tips and information for these tough times ahead. From keeping your customers and staff safe to ideas for future-proofing your brand.
Today’s tips cover diversifying your business from embracing takeaway to menu alternatives.
Join the Takeaway Revolution
Even before the outbreak of coronavirus, takeaway and delivery trends for the foodservice industry were on the rise. Now it is important to embrace this trend and take advantage of the relief third party delivery and ordering services are offering. Click and Collect can be a great option for restaurants that cannot offer delivery.
Uber Eats announced a $5 million funding package for independent restaurants across the country. The stimulus will allow restaurants to deploy promotions to attract customers. It is also introducing a new opt-in program for all restaurants on the platform offering daily payments, rather than the standard weekly payment. In addition to this, all restaurants will pay no service fees on pick up orders until 30 June.
Meunlog has announced it will halve all commission on pick up orders across all its partner restaurants to help stimulate in-store business as well as delivery. In addition to this, it has invested funds in marketing efforts across New Zealand to promote restaurant partners.
Restaurant Hub has launched its new Click & Collect service, restaurants that sign up for the service will be provided with the software to set it up and staff at Restaurant Hub will provide tips and information about online ordering.
Menu Ideas
In stressful times consumers get hungry for comfort food, think pies, pasta and soups, food that will make your customers feel good.
It is important to think about what meals will be best suited for travel if your business is offering delivery. Click and Collect is a good alternative to delivery and enables you to offer meals that go beyond the usual display cabinet fare, these meals don’t have to be ready to eat either, Heat and Eat options are great for customers to buy now and consume later.
Consumers also want food with functionality so focussing on healthy, immune-boosting ingredients can be a great way to attract customers. For example, the health benefits of turmeric are well documented, try it out in sauces, smoothies and even in a frothy latte.
Consider the Community
There will be staff shortages in many areas of the community due to the pandemic, consider what your business can do to fill the void.
Perhaps you can reach out to your local aged care or retirement facility to see if they need meals or catering in case their staff are home in self-isolation.
Coming together (within a safe distance) is incredibly important, Kiwis have a history of getting stuck in when times are tough and now is no different. Look out for others while looking out for yourself and ensure that customer loyalty when we do eventually emerge on the other side. It is vital to implement these ideas now to help your business weather the storm.
Stay tuned for more tips, including menu ideas, delivery options, and advice from around the globe.
If you missed the earlier instalments of Industry Tips click here Covid19/Updates
