Amidst the news of a Lockdown in the Country, the Fast Food and Night out Restaurants have been hugely hit. Around 30% of people will not be even considering safe to eat outside. Food and Food Hygiene has to be taken seriously and it is been actually been difficult to reassure the customers that their food hadn’t been touched by anybody potentially carrying the infection.Consumer confidence is one thing that the restaurants will have to take further steps in strengthening.
The Operators are currently making sure that their workers are sanitised, temperature taken before they join and they do maintain a safe distance when they do cooking in the kitchen and also wear mask and gloves. They are asked to use sanitizer frequently to keep their hands clean. All the operators are currently diligent with their workers to protect their workers from coronavirus exposure. However they also need to ensure the food once it leaves the premises reached the customer safely.
How do we convey to our customers that the food they ordered is perfect and safe.Smart labelling would be an idea proof to consumers that their food has not been touched by delivery personnel. Recently going through articles I found that using tamper-evident labels are the perfect sign that food has not been touched by anyone outside the quick-service restaurant location. Tamper Evident labels can be used to close the package and tampering them would lead to proof that the food is not safe. A ripped label definitely alerts the customer that the order was tampered with and the restaurant can then replace their order.
Zomato the largest delivery operator is implemented of what they call Zomato Safely Sealed. In their words, more and more Zomato food deliveries will be completed using 100% safely sealed tamper-proof packages. The sealed packages come in two sizes: small and large. The large ones are capable of carrying 2-4 large boxes while the smaller ones are convenient for 1-2 food item boxes. The versatility of the packaging design allows for efficient utilization of the space.
So far, this piloted initiative in 10 cities (Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Nagpur and Vadodara) and the response has been very encouraging, with more than 5,000 restaurants already on-board. Zomato reports that they are covering 25% of the order volume from these cities with tamper-proof packages. Over three million tamper-proof packages have already been shipped to restaurants, and going by the current run rate, we will increase this figure by 3x by April, as they will introduce this packaging across 25 more cities in India.
There are large burdens on quick-service restaurant operators right now, so implementing tamper-evident labels may seem like a huge task. But that is the least they can do to not lose customers and also a safe way to stand out amongst the sea of restaurant operators.
