‘Are food orders safe amid COVID-19?’ ‘How can I ensure if my food is free from contamination?’ The internet is flooded with these queries from people all across the globe. “COVID-19 may become endemic,” states the WHO. This has pushed us to a state where we adapt ourselves to the ‘new’ normal and carry on with our lives. Industries are beginning to operate full-time, as a measure to revive the economic losses.
People who have been self-isolating themselves are beginning to order food from their favorite restaurants. The food delivery business is back on track, with multiple restaurants signing up with online platforms to reach out to their customers. This has made business owners invest in a food delivery platform and establish a mark for themselves. In this blog, let’s take a comprehensive look at how entrepreneurs can launch an UberEats clone app with perfect safety standards amid the COVID-19 crisis.
As an online food delivery platform, it is your responsibility to ensure the safety of food reaching your customers. Let’s discuss different precautionary measures here,
The preparatory phase
This phase generally includes preparing and packing the food, as per users’ orders. As a result, it is restaurants you need to focus on at this stage.
- Periodic temperature checks: Restaurant personnel can act as ‘carriers’ of the disease. To ensure food safety, you need to continually monitor the temperatures of chefs, restaurant managers, etc.
- Frequent washing of utensils: Proper hygiene and sanitation procedures are mandatory to curb disease spread. By washing kitchen utensils periodically in the restaurants, you can prevent contamination.
- Safety gear to personnel: It is paramount to ensure the safety of restaurant personnel, as well. Providing safety gear that includes gloves, masks, sanitizers, etc., can ensure personnel’s lives and maintain food safety.
- Double layer of packaging: Besides the primary packaging, offer an additional package above it during the delivery time. In doing so, the delivery professionals are free from disease contraction.
- Allot a specified pick-up area: Delivery professionals are under constant exposure with the external environment. So, to keep the restaurant infection-free, make sure the restaurants establish a dedicated pick-up area.
- Disinfecting the restaurants: Although there isn’t any people’s movement in the restaurants, sanitizing the entire region becomes a necessity. This is because the pathogen adheres to surfaces and remains active for a longer time.
You must ensure that the restaurants functioning under your belt are maintaining strict safety standards.
The delivery phase
This stage begins once the food orders are out for delivery. Hence, the safety of delivery professionals is paramount at this stage.
- Practicing contactless deliveries: The virus transmits by external physical contact from an infected patient. Delivery professionals can practice zero contact food deliveries. By adopting this method, delivery workers place users’ food orders in a place in front of their homes, thereby ensuring that there is no contact made.
- Providing them safety gear: Delivery workers, similar to the frontline workers, are risking their lives to offer doorstep services to people in need. Hence, make sure you provide the necessary personal protective equipment to these workers.
- Educating them about the situation: In unprecedented times like these, awareness regarding the situation is vital. By educating delivery professionals on the modes of disease transmission, and the ways of preventing the disease, you can effectively curb the transmission rate.
- Adopting proper hygiene and sanitation procedures: Delivery workers must understand the threatening situation, and adopt adequate hygiene standards. Frequent sanitation of hands can extensively prevent community spread.
The delivery professionals offering services for your platform must adhere to these safety regulations to contain the disease.
The handling or the consumer phase
This stage begins as soon as the food reaches the doorsteps of the consumers. Users, too, play a significant role in ensuring the safety of food. The precautionary measures include,
- Discard food packages: Pathogens, adhering to these food packages’ surfaces, can lead to disease spread. Hence, it is advisable to dispose of food packages after transferring the food to a safe container.
- Encourage digital transactions: To avoid any contact with delivery professionals, users can encourage cashless modes of payments. As an online platform, you can disable ‘cash on delivery’ options to users, thereby enhancing safety.
- Sanitizing ‘high-touch’ surfaces: Now, there are certain areas under constant exposure to multiple people. These include handles of food packages, edges of cutlery, etc. There are higher chances of contracting the disease when users come in contact with these surfaces. Sanitizing these surfaces before use can effectively contain the disease spread.
- Maintain social distancing: Even if users adopt contactless deliveries, maintaining at least a 6-foot distance with delivery workers is necessary. Social distancing is the only productive weapon users can equip to fight the disease.
You can encourage your app users to adopt these strategies either in the form of instructions or during checkouts.
The role of food delivery platforms
The individual responsibility of all these networks is coupled to become a collective responsibility, which is continually monitored by the food delivery platforms. People neither believe in the restaurant, nor do they acknowledge delivery professionals. It is your duty to uphold the trustworthiness of your users towards your platform. Some of the strategies you can undertake include,
- Visiting restaurants for safety standards: You can monitor multiple restaurants by their user ratings. In case of any discrepancies, you can visit the restaurants in-person and verify if the restaurants adhere to strict safety standards. You can terminate their contracts if they do not follow your strategies.
- Providing insurance covers to delivery workers: Delivery workers are putting their lives at stake to offer services. To increase their morale, you can provide them with insurance covers in case of any health issues. This can offer them a sense of relief and satisfaction.
- Organizing a relief fund: Delivery workers’ have been left stranded for almost three months now. As a platform, it is your responsibility to provide a helping hand to workers in these difficult times. You can organize a relief fund, wherein users can contribute to these workers.
- Eliminating the cancellation fee: Users can cancel their orders any time they find the delivery workers or the food package not adhering to safety standards. You can reimburse the amount in full in such circumstances.
Launch your food delivery app
Now that you are well aware of the safety standards, it is time to give wings to your business. There are a couple of popular ways to venture into the market. They include,
- Development from the ground: This is one of the traditional methods of developing the app. You approach app development companies and gain their assistance to build your app according to your needs. This incurs a hefty budget and consumes a considerable amount of time, as well.
- Customizing clone apps: This is one of the recent market trends. You can approach app development companies for clone apps that are entirely customizable. An UberEats clone app is highly reliable, cost-effective, and can be launched instantly into the market.
If you need to venture into the market instantly, you can opt for the latter type.
Bottom line,
While food safety lies in every individual’s hands, it is the duty of food delivery platforms to ensure collective responsibility among the different networks. With the advent of clone apps, launching a food delivery app has become quite simple. However, maintaining safety regulations throughout the app lies in the hands of efficient entrepreneurs. Establish your business entity today!