How Your Food Business Can Outlive The Pandemic
There’s no doubt that most industries took significant hits when the pandemic started. Companies like food businesses wildly scrambled to stay afloat during the wake of the worldwide health scare.
It’s believed that the impact of the global public health menace isn’t consistent across everybody in the food industry. Those who managed to remain open, it’s said, mainly were large corporations with established branding. Many factors may have influenced the fall of many food enterprises, big and small. Imposed quarantine lockdowns and compliance to health and safety protocols are just two examples.
Despite the challenges you’ve faced during the start of the pandemic, as a company owner, your food business can still thrive and outlive it by transitioning sustainably your means and operations. The pace of your recovery might vary from others though. Still, you can establish a game plan that’ll stand the test of time by updating your ways and trying a myriad of novel approaches. Read on the following tips on how your food business can flourish in these trying times:
- Up The Ante On Your Delivery Services
You can’t deny the necessity and convenience of delivery services. This fact became evident at the onset of the pandemic when many food establishments and even other businesses were forced to close shop. For your food business to persist in this highly competitive pandemic-driven market, you must optimize your delivery options.
To start, you can provide your delivery service or link your business to a third-party delivery system. But the latter is more convenient, especially if the delivery platform is easily accessible through websites or smartphone apps to a large number of people.
Plan through the specifics of the move and consider different suitable and cost-effective packaging solutions for your food items. You can also include allergen labeling and information to accommodate your customers’ specifications. To know more information, you can visit online sites like https://www.tdipacksys.com/ and others similar to it to check out more packaging options for your food business.
- Update Business Operations
As health authorities and local officials alleviate lockdown restrictions in your area, you must develop improved business operations. In relation to this, you must employ new safety and hygiene protocols and showcase them to your customers. This will help your customers feel at ease in going into your establishments to do business with you.
Also, adjust processes that’ll help your employees’ efficiency that complements the changes in your customers’ behavior. One example is if your business is a restaurant and you plan to restart offering dine-in services soon, your staff must have the necessary skills that match the new needs of your operations. It’d be best to consider many factors because only a limited number of staff members can work on-site due to the health protocols.
Aside from that, you can prioritize products or services that contribute most to your income. This will help your employees efficiently do their jobs because your product offering size is narrowed down. Additionally, look for ways or approaches to serve new customers. Don’t forget to apply the health protection rules to modify your work activities.
- Know And Adapt To Changing Consumer Preferences
Aside from improving your business operations, another significant factor to focus on is your customers’ behavior and preferences. Due to the pandemic, it’s said that most consumers are forced to stay inside their homes. That’s why you have to understand their new behaviors and preferences. They might be craving some sense of normalcy while remaining concerned about their health and safety.
One way to address clientele demands is to make adjustments to the price of your products and services. You can reintroduce your products in consideration of the new market conditions. Yet be careful and examine the value of your items first before announcing new pricing schemes. Then, make your customers understand and accept your newly-unveiled changes by framing them to show that it’s done to their best health interests.
- Rethink The On-Site Design Of Your Establishment
If your business is a restaurant, you might want to change or renovate the physical layout of your physical business space. This is encouraged due to the shift from off-premise dining. Layout renovations might include adding a drive-through and pick-up lanes for your customers’ convenience.
You can also invest in making an enhanced outside space or patio to accommodate more clients seeking to dine al fresco. This is helpful for your customers to enjoy your company’s outdoor dining experience while also ensuring them that it’s relatively safe to seek food items and services from your company.
- Invest In Analytics And Automation
Both advanced analytics and automation enable contactless services and promote efficiency in businesses. How so? Advanced analytics can supplement your business decision-making process by forecasting daily consumer demand and fluctuations in patrons’ behaviors. It can also predict the future behaviors of your client base based on their current choices.
Meanwhile, labor automation can increase the productivity of your business’ processes. It can also address the health concerns of your customers by providing them with contactless transactions. It’s said that such innovations are just the start of the many growing technologies in the food sector.
If you’re interested in knowing more about the transition into contactless services, you can refer to the IDEA framework below.
- Identify: You have to determine what nature and type of interaction you’re trying to establish with contactless transactions.
- Diagnose: You should have a metric system to measure your growth. Use a risk-scoring system that includes your intended interactions’ frequency, intensity, and duration. This will help you prioritize essential things and develop solutions based on your needs.
- Execute: Once you’ve come up with solutions, implement them in an agile way. You can do this by addressing urgent needs and brainstorming long-term solutions simultaneously.
- Adapt: Data from customer feedback should be iterated and used to refine your solutions and process flows.
Final Thoughts
Food businesses suffered severe challenges during the pandemic such as labor losses, huge drop in revenues, discontinuation of some products, and even permanent closure to some unfortunate firms. These obstacles brought by the pandemic can serve as a stepping stone for businesses to thrive and can even survive the test of time.
The tips mentioned above are only some of the approaches you can apply to your business. The actions you’ll take from now on will determine whether your company will persevere even through the most challenging times. Equipping your enterprise with the necessary strategies and tools to serve your customers will help you achieve your goals while navigating treacherous waters.