Does your kitchen need to gear up for home deliveries?

Caterline

These are challenging times for the hospitality industry – but while people remain at home they also look forward to enjoying good food and takeaways remain popular. 

Many restaurants have quickly adapted their business to provide home deliveries where they did not offer a takeaway service before.

This has presented many restaurants and cafes with a lifeline that is allowing them to keep trading. 

And while businesses have turned to an online order and delivery system out of necessity it is worth bearing in mind the opportunities this may present in the future.

Putting in place an efficient system may mean needing to make some changes to the way that your catering kitchen is organised.

As well as offering takeaway meals many cafes and restaurants are now turning their catering kitchen into delicatessens or offering food deliveries as people avoid going to the supermarket – or are unable to go. 

Beer and wine are also on the list of popular deliveries as people at home look for easier ways to enjoy good food and wine.  

Speed and safe delivery

While for some catering kitchens the transition from dine-in to takeaway may be a case of trial and error it certainly is worth sitting down and working out dishes that will not transport well. 

While these are challenging times people will still expect certain standards when they are paying so food that is fragile to the point it will arrive quite possibly looking destroyed is not ideal. Likewise, hot dishes that cool down very quickly will fall short of expectations. 

Shortening your menu and tailoring foods that can be prepared and delivered quickly and to a high standard could shift the emphasis within the kitchen. 

If you have a pizza oven, for example, this is likely to be well used while chips are a failsafe, which means the fryer should be positioned in easy reach.

Packaging

Rearrange your existing kitchen equipment where possible to optimise your time with a ‘making line’ that finishes with the packaging. 

Speed is more important in takeaways as your customer is sitting hungrily at home rather than sipping wine in company or slowly eating a starter. 

Getting the right packaging is important to preserving the quality of food, which may come down to availability at some level. 

Make sure you have freed up space in a prime spot in your catering kitchen to ensure packaging is always at hand when you need it – you definitely don’t want to waste precious time searching for a box while food is going cold.   

While your restaurant remains empty it will be easy to optimise the catering equipment and kitchen space that you have to create a dedicated takeaway line. 

New catering opportunities

However, if you choose to make deliveries a part of your business moving forward it may be necessary to expand capacity as combining dining-in and takeaway catering could prove overwhelming if done in the same area by the same employees. 

As always space and storage are incredibly important in efficient catering operations.

Should you want to add to your catering equipment to increase capacity, or upgrade the products that you have, Caterline Ltd is here to help. 

Caterline provides brand new and upgraded catering equipment as well as offering a full kitchen design service.

For more information on upgrading your catering kitchen equipment please contact Caterline Ltd. 

For more advice or to discuss introducing new commercial catering equipment to your kitchen contact us on 01384 597111

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