One major result of the coronavirus outbreak has been the trend toward food delivery. Dining rooms and walk-up counters all over the country were shut down for months, creating an opportunity for those restaurants to utilize delivery services. If you’re thinking of starting a delivery business, there are five important things you need to know.
Navigation for Your Area
Food delivery requires timely arrival by drivers. If you fail to reach your destination quickly, the food will be cold and the customer disappointed. That can quickly spell the end of your business before it even gets started. Make sure that you know where your destinations are before you pick up any product. Have plans already in place for rerouting around construction, traffic problems, or other delays.
How to Sequence Deliveries
Package delivery services manage their routes right down to every stop to minimize fuel consumption and wasted time. The same is true of food delivery, especially with the added urgency of transporting perishable items. Just as you need to know where your deliveries are going, you also need to know the most efficient order to drop them off. You should be able to chart out your course quickly and minimize the time until you complete the route.
Delivery Safety
Your safety and that of your employees should always top your list of priorities. Create realistic expectations of delivery times so that drivers do not feel that they need to exceed speed limits. Never establish policies that could encourage such behavior. Orient them to warning signs of potentially dangerous delivery locations and customers. Ensure that they never carry large sums of money and are trained not to resist a robber.
Proper Food Handling
Just because you’re delivering a finished meal doesn’t mean you don’t still have to abide by good food safety practices. In fact, it’s actually even more important to handled cooked food safely because raw products will still be exposed to high temperatures later on. Make sure that you have proper insulated containers and that you use good handwashing and masking habits.
Efficient Communication
Whether you’re delivering only your own product or meals from several different vendors, you’ll need a way to stay in contact with someone back at the kitchen. Make sure you have cell phone chargers and know where any dead spots for calls and data are located, checking in after passing through them.
The food delivery service is thriving thanks to COVID-19. Whether you are serving Tacos or sandwiches in Kaiser Buns, you can be very successful in this enterprise with good planning and management.
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