As the COVID-19 crisis continues to impact our daily lives and businesses, your restaurant should be keeping up with the latest adjustments and practices to ensure your customers and employees are safe during this time. With social distancing orders in place, no-contact delivery is quickly becoming the standard method for bringing take out orders to customers.
Although contactless delivery isn’t a direct solution for removing all human interaction while meals are being prepared and packaged, this form of delivery is great at preventing the possible spread of harmful bacteria and viruses. No-contact delivery is different from regular doorstep delivery because food runners don’t interact with customers and simply leave orders at their guest’s designated drop-off location. Besides this, orders are assembled and arranged with "no-touch" cooking methods by employees to keep customer’s meals as sanitary as possible. "No-touch" cooking requires as little contact as possible while preparing and assembling orders.
If your foodservice establishment has recently implemented no-contact delivery in your take out services and is searching how to properly follow no-contact guidelines, here’s everything you need to know about this up-and-coming form of delivering meals.
How To Prepare and Package Your Orders
To safely prepare no-contact delivery orders, it’s important to train your staff in no-contact procedures. While employees should already be wearing gloves and protective gear when cooking and arranging orders, there are extra steps to take to ensure meals are made with minimal contact.
- Eliminate handheld food prep stations.
- Provide tongs, spatulas, and other kitchen utensils to handle foods without directly touching ingredients.
- Sanitize your kitchen supplies and surfaces constantly.
- Prepare orders in separate food stations.
- Practice social distancing as much as possible.
The most essential part of preparing no-contact orders is the kind of packaging used. While regular delivery orders can be assembled using traditional take out boxes, no-contact delivery requires using containers that can be closed firmly without touching the container’s interior.
- Opt for individual containers with lids that snap on or have airtight seals.
- Choose tamper-evident take out supplies so customers can be sure their meals haven’t been opened once closed.
- Pack up orders and seal disposable bags with stickers or staples as an extra way to show customers you care about their safety.
Take Out Supplies Checklist
Check your current inventory to find out if the kind of take out supplies you normally stock can be used for contactless delivery. Here’s a rundown of the kind of take out supplies recommended for no-contact delivery orders:
- Plastic containers with airtight lids
- Multiple compartment containers with airtight lids Containers with snap-on lids
- Disposable forks
- Disposable knives
- Disposable spoons
- Disposable napkins
- Wrapped disposable cutlery sets
- Tamper-evident drink packaging
- Large paper bags
- Tamper-evident stickers
How To Safely Deliver Orders
Once meals have been prepared and packaged, they must be delivered to your customers. In order to maintain social distancing standards within your establishment, create a designated carry out station for couriers to quickly grab orders without stepping foot in your restaurant’s kitchen.
- Set up a kitchen rack at the entrance of your restaurant to give food runners easy access to orders while staying several feet away from your kitchen.
- Set up a touchless payment system either over the phone or through food delivery apps to eliminate any possible contact between staff and customers.
- Keep food preparation stations clean and organized to prevent any mix-ups between orders.
- Provide employees with gloves and face masks to ensure they stay protected while delivering orders.
- Instruct your employees to leave food orders outside the customer’s front door or designated drop-off location, and notify them once their order has arrived.
Depending on the kind of food delivery platform your business is using, couriers might be asked to take a picture of customer’s orders once delivered. This a great standard to implement at your restaurant to get ahead of errors and mix-ups during delivery.
How To Cut Down Your Current Menu Into A No-Contact Friendly Menu
Although you might think your foodservice establishment’s menu is already delivery-friendly, you might be wrong when it comes to no-contact delivery. Since contactless delivery requires minimizing the amount of contact between employees and orders, your take out menu should include more meals that can be made without having to arrange ingredients by hand after cooking. This means that items like tossed salads, sandwiches, or tacos might not be best to pack in your menu. Instead, fill menus with items like pizzas, soups, or quesadillas that naturally require less contact and time to prepare.
DIY Meal Kits
An easy solution to turning your regular menu into a no-contact delivery menu is by creating DIY meal kits. By packaging ingredients separately, employees can cut down on the amount of contact they would normally be making when preparing complete meals. DIY meal kits have become a recent hit trend amongst consumers practicing self-isolation and social-distancing standards. Your business should be looking for ways to upgrade popular menu items into fun and simple DIY projects for customers. By implementing these kinds of steps in your restaurant’s kitchen, your establishment is doing its best to keep employees and customers safe and healthy.
How No-Contact Delivery Benefits Your Business
The best way to make sure your restaurant is benefiting from using no-contact delivery methods is by marketing your new take out standards to consumers. These days, consumers are looking for businesses that are keeping public health in mind as COVID-19 progresses. No-contact delivery is a great way to show customers your restaurant cares about their safety. Consider creating social media posts that advertise the new delivery services your establishment is currently offering. Your restaurant can even make an instructional video on the new procedures employees are taking to keep orders safe and sanitary. Customers will appreciate the initiative your business is taking, and this helps build back trust amongst consumers. Limiting personal contact during food preparation and delivery is the best way to keep your employees safe and customers satisfied during this time.
