Food, Customers & Trends Post the COVID-19 Lockdown

As the nation unlocks and several regions remain in strict lockdown, the focus is on counting losses and scrambling to stand up.

Since this is a food blog, I am concentrating on restaurants in this post.

While the nation was in lockdown, I did a survey to understand the impact of COVID-19 on eating out and food deliveries. The results were close to what I had expected and if you are yet to read the results, do follow the link above.

Understanding the Customer

The results definitely depict a few important points that I have discussed below.

Playing It Safe

While food deliveries still operated by major players like Zomato and Swiggy, there was a massive drop in the orders. When it comes to food, Indians are risk averse and that is not without reason.

Restaurants have regularly passed on left overs or long-refrigerated dishes to diners. Online orders are easy meat to fool the customers. Isn’t it true?

No doubt when the crisis loomed large, customers stayed in and refrained from ordering online.

Trust Issues

The results of the survey point to a major issue. Trust!

When asked the reason for not ordering online and getting food home delivered, most said that they are not sure about the processes followed in the restaurants to ensure the health and hygiene of the staff.

They have also cast doubts on the delivery startups on how they will ensure a hygienic delivery.

The lack of trust ensured that online orders plummeted to an all-time low.

Cooking at Home

Cooking became the new hobby.

From Dalgona Coffee, to making panipuri at home, to baking and cooking biryani – the lockdown served as the perfect occasion to hone up cooking skills and share the lovely outcome with family and friends on social media platforms.

The joy of cooking a meal together and savoring it with the family/friends became the new pastime. Perks of being locked in!

When the Lockdown Ends

I have discussed some serious issues. So once the lockdown ends, it’s highly unlikely that people will fold up and return to eating out or ordering through the apps.

I do see an uptick in orders when life starts hitting the normal gear and people get into a celebratory mood after months of staying indoors.

However, most would prefer to wait and watch. The survey points to exactly that. 50% of the respondents said that it would take them more than a month till half a year before they resume eating out or ordering via apps.

If this holds true, it would mean a massive blow to the system.

People are reacting with shock and the survey result is no exception. Even by conservative means, I would expect diners to take at least another couple of months before the jittery nerves calm down.

Over to the Restaurants

Restaurants and food business owners associated to restaurants and eateries are facing huge losses. And the next three months won’t be any different.

There will be some sales once the lockdown ends, but most proceeds from the sales would go into salaries, payment of EMIs for loans, and other expenditure.

And if you are someone who runs an eatery, a food truck or a restaurant, you should prepare for the future. The future isn’t going to be like what life was before the lockdown.

Social distancing, defining and implementing processes to ensure health and hygiene will be the hallmark of the operations. In simple words, being transparent, reaching out to your customers, taking them into confidence will help your business sustain and progress.

Here are a few things that every restaurant should do to instill confidence in the diners. Discounts will not work unless you can assure the diners of hygiene and safety.

For food trucks and eateries, I will share the details in a separate article.

Procurement of Raw Materials

When you procure raw materials, ensure that you sanitize them.

Wash vegetables in a diluted chemical solution and rewash them in clean water to remove any chemicals.

With packaged groceries, you can deploy your personnel to sanitize them with an alcohol-based sanitizer, before unpacking and storing them in respective containers.

For everything else, like non-veg procurement, ensure that your vendor follows the best practices. You can also establish an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) for your vendor and monitor them on a daily basis. If required, change your vendor.

Restaurant, Staff & Delivery Personnel

As a restaurant manager/owner, start off by establishing a procedure to sanitize the kitchen and dining space every couple of hours.

Make a note of common touch points and ensure that they are sanitized more often, say every 30-minutes depending on the rush.

Your staff should go through mandatory temperature checks and must report to you if they develop symptoms. In such a scenario, you should ask them to return home and make provisions to get them tested for COVID-19. Of course, you must keep a note of your staff’s well-being and take similar actions whenever you see someone showing symptoms.

Ensure that your staff wears a mask, a face shield, head cap and gloves. The masks should be discarded after every use and fresh ones should be distributed the next day. The same applies to head cap and gloves.

Remember, an infection can result in complete shutdown of your business!

You also need to employ a standard operating procedure for delivery personnel. For example, start with having a separate counter for deliveries and take away. This way, your diners and staff are protected.

Secondly, have hand sanitizers ready before the pick up happens. Every delivery personnel should wear masks, and undergo mandatory temperature checks and sanitize their palms before a pick up.

If the delivery personnel is under your payroll, ensure that you give them a sanitizer to use along with additional masks and face shields to ensure their safety.

Thirdly, ensure that the food is properly packaged and there is no leakage during the transit. Have food-grade, leak proof containers and charge a fee if you see that it is having an impact on your overheads.

Importantly, reduce the seating space by almost 40%. Space out the tables and chairs to implement social distancing.

Keep an eye on the air flow from the AC. Try to minimize seating in the line of the air from the AC.

Diners & Service

Diners are the most important part of your business. They are your customers who have braved a pandemic, trusted your restaurant and came out to dine.

Contactless Sanitizer

First things first. Have a contactless sanitizer in place just outside the entrance. Diners can use their feet to sanitize their hands before making an entry.

For a specially-abled guest, deploy a staff to help with the procedure.

Temperature Checks & Contactless Entry

Once your diners have sanitized themselves, have a staff member/security personnel do a temperature check.

Once the temperature check is done and the guest is deemed fit, the staff can hold the door open to enable contactless entry for the guest.

Sanitize the Seating Space Infront of the Guests

Sanitize the seating space where your diners will seat. Your staff can perform this activity in front of the guests for increased confidence levels and assurance of safety and hygiene.

Place a Hand Sanitizer on the Dining Table

While the guests seat, place a hand sanitizer on the table. Have napkins in sufficient numbers placed on the table and show them the way to the washroom if they wish to wash their hands with a soap.

Remove any salt and sauce bottles from the table and do not keep any green chilly, onion bowls. Minimalist is the way forward! You can serve them separately on the plate.

You may also keep a fresh disposable bag/envelop where your diners can keep the mask while eating/drinking.

Have a Talk

As the owner/manager of the restaurant, talk to your customers. Explain to them the various steps you have taken to ensure hygiene and assure them of a safe dining experience.

Alternatively, get a small video done of every change your restaurant has undergone to improve hygiene. You can play this on an LCD in loop.

Digital Menu

Do not keep printed menus.

Instead, have digital menus available on the restaurant’s website or app.

In the absence of any website or app, share a digital menu over WhatsApp or Messenger.

If your restaurant has a small and limited menu, you can also have this displayed on a LCD display. Just make sure that it is legible from the farthest corner.

Open Kitchen

Your customers will feel confident about the steps you have taken if they can see how their order is being handled in the kitchen.

It would be great to have an open kitchen.

However, I understand that an open kitchen may not be always suitable thanks to how the architecture and design. In such a case, deploy a CCTV camera in the kitchen and have the feed telecast live in the dining space.

Use & Throw Cutleries

Droplets are a real danger in times of pandemic. Minimize washing of cutlery and reusing them by having disposable plates, cups, spoons and bowls.

You can have a plate made of sal leaves or banana leaf or both, one over the other. Use food grade spoons/forks and disposable and environment-friendly bowls, cups and glasses.

Food Service

The serving staff should have their masks, head cap, gloves and face shields on while serving the food or interacting with the customers.

Face shields are an absolute must if you are interacting with customers who are already dining. Remember, diners will not have their masks on while dining.

Contactless Billing & Payment

Check with your customers if they are fine with a soft copy mailed to their email address or sent to their WhatsApp numbers.

For payment, you can consider online wallets and UPI. Cards can also be accepted provided you ensure that you sanitize them before and after use.

Spread the Message

Putting a plan in place and implementing it is half the battle. The most important thing is to get this message across to the customers.

There are several ways to do it. One way would be to create a video that highlights these operational changes and share it across different social media channels. Run campaigns on Facebook to aware your customers.

Want to discuss more? Write to me! Together, we can!