The Covid-19 pandemic has left industries across the world reeling, and the F&B industry is no exception.
Restaurants and bars are beginning to close or reduce operations by doing deliveries as social distancing becomes essential to flatten the curve. These closures have obviously hit hard not only F&B owners and operators, but also the workforce, both front and back of the house. During this pandemic period, as a small business owner you have to be creative in order for your business to adapt and ride out this challenging time. One obvious way when dine-in is forbidden, is to pivot to takeout and delivery.
We’ve rounded up some ideas to make your menu more food delivery-friendly, adopted by other restaurants around the world, that you can consider to adapt your business for facing this crisis.
Family-style meals
Your customers may not go out to dine, but people still need to eat. After a few days at home working from home, parents might not have the energy to cook for their family for both lunch and dinner – this is where you come in.
Family-style meals, designed for sharing, like a whole roasted chicken with steamed vegetables and a side of mashed potatoes or mac and cheese is much more appealing since a lot of people are staying in with their family.
Photo credit: Canlis
At times like this, people are more health-conscious (and there’s only so much fast food you can eat!) so offering dishes that are made with whole grains, or immunity-boosting ingredients and fresh vegetables are also a good way upsell. Remember to give your healthy menu good names that emphasise health benefits!
Lastly, making it affordable so that it is more accessible to consumers is important. Use cheaper ingredients and focus on simple recipes that are filling. Since family meals are larger, they give you a higher check size and allow you to pass along almost the entire cost of logistics.
For fine/ semi-fine dining restaurants
For restaurants that rely heavily on dining in, such as fine dining, adding delivery take-out dishes isn’t as simple as putting food in boxes. Consumers go to fine dining restaurants for the gastronomic way of cooking, atmosphere and top-notch service. When customers ask for an oxtail & truffle risotto to-go you’ll have to say no because it just doesn't travel well and will disappoint your customer when it finally is eaten at home. During this time, tweaking your menu to a more casual one is essential – you may have to change the sauces and the cuts of meat so the dishes can last the journey to their destination.
Fine dining restaurants in other parts of the world have also taken another approach, which is to create high quality meals that customers can finish off in the oven or microwave at home. Despite being unable to venture out of their homes, some customers still want to look forward to the luxury of an exquisitely prepared meal that not only tastes good but looks good too. In this case, adapting your recipes so that they can be transported and also reaching out to your clientele is important – make sure to let your entire mailing list know that they can still enjoy your food in the comfort of their own homes.
Meal kits
As a F&B owner, you have access to raw materials which may be difficult for the average person to access, since going out to get groceries is not as easy as before. Ingredients such as onions, certain cuts of meats or spices are now hard to find at grocery stores because they are sold out from all the panic buying. Since the competition of delivery food is high and you might be competing with thousands of other restaurants, another approach is to make family meal kits. Using your access from your suppliers, you can design the kit of daily or weekly boxes containing ingredients and also include suggested recipes that can be cooked by the customer using the pre-ordered ingredients. This model from Blue Apron is a good example.
Photo credit: Blue Apron
To make things even easier for your customers, you can prepare sauces, cut vegetables and season meats so that all they have to do is put it in the pan on the stove. This way, customers can plan their meals ahead, order multiple meals at a time and also save on delivery cost.
Providing Packed Food for Front Liners
This is the busiest and most exhausting time for healthcare workers. They are risking their health at work in order to protect us and they probably do not have time to buy or order food for themselves. Providing packed food for them allows you as a business owner to have some revenue, and at the same time support front liners. You can have a limited menu such as nasi lemak paired with curry puffs for breakfast and beef sandwiches with chips for lunch. The delivery can be done in bulk as you will be serving an entire staff, saving on delivery cost.
Not to forget, healthcare workers are not the only ones who have to continue working yet have little time and limited options when it comes to their meals. Banks, supermarkets, postal offices and more essential services still remain open – and their staff are your potential customers.
Our community understands because it's full of F&B owners just like you. You're welcome to be part of it.
To help the industry grow and flourish, we created a Whatsapp chat group for F&B owners in Singapore.
The only criteria to join is having an F&B outlet that is already opened and operational.
We will be sharing more ideas on how to tackle this situation, be the first to know!
Cheryl Tay is the editor and content marketer at iCHEF Singapore. She also manages iCHEF Club, a growing community of F&B owners in Singapore – organising events, the blog, an online newsletter and the F&B Entrepreneur Bootcamp, the only regular workshop on opening a new restaurant in the country. In her spare time, she attempts to read every book that’s ever won a literary prize and watches cat videos. Like any proper Singaporean, her love for food runs deep – especially spicy food. Chili is life.
