Webinar report: what hygiene measures should you put in place for your restaurant?

Where to look for new sources of revenue in the face of the difficulties encountered since mid-March? What new offers should be proposed? How do you launch takeaway and delivery services when you've never done them before? How can you ensure a quality experience for your customers? Together with Gwenaël Avertis - Co-founder of Octopus HACCP - we advise you on how to reopen your restaurant in a way that protects the health of your employees, customers and delivery staff, reorganizes your kitchens operationally and reassures your customers online.A big thank you to the 300 registrants, we hope this webinar was informative. For those of you who weren't able to attend, we'd like to take a look back at the main points to remember from the webinar.

See the replay with the slides:

1) HACCP basics

2) What are the best practices for takeaways and deliveries?

3) How to reassure online?

4) How to boost sales

1) HACCP basics

Four conditions must be met:

• Traceability:
  • For incoming inspections, you must keep your delivery notes to identify the suppliers and the foodstuffs delivered.
  • For internal traceability: cut out your labels or take photos of them using HACCP software. The aim is to retain the product name, batch number and use-by date.

• Temperature: you must ensure that the cold chain is maintained. Check the temperature of your cold chambers daily before starting production. If you use rapid cooling to store or deliver your products, you must respect the time/temperature pairing! Take hot products from 63°C to 10°C in less than 2 hours, then store them at 3°C.

• Shelf life and labelling:
  • In the absence of microbiological analysis, the maximum use-by date for a product is three days after processing or packaging. If several preparations are assembled, the shortest best-before date applies.
  • When labelling takeaway food, it is compulsory to show the best-before date.

• The cleaning and disinfection plan :

To draw up your kitchen cleaning and disinfection plan (NCP), you must first define :

• • Zones and elements within each zone.
  • Cleaning frequency (day, week, month, etc.).
  • Methodology (unplug, scrub, leave, act, rinse, scrape).
  • Hygiene products (disinfectant, degreaser, etc.).

To do this, please bring two documents with you:

• • Cleaning and disinfection plan.
  • The PND statement.

As for your hygiene products, they must be suitable for food contact, adapted to your surfaces and catering (bactericidal, yeasticidal, virucidal products).

You can download all the HACCP statement sheets by registering for Octopus Academy's free online training course . You'll receive 1 email a day for 10 days with useful tips, reminders of regulations, practical sheets and HACCP statement tables to download, as well as good advice for communicating with your customers!

2) What are the best practices for takeaways and deliveries?

In the kitchen, it is mandatory to :

• Wear a mask, cap or hat.
• Wash hands after each contaminating action.
• Wear work clothes specific to each department.
• Respect social distancing by creating work zones and circulation routes.

For delivery, we recommend :

• Wear a mask and gloves, or disinfect hands after each delivery.
• Maintain a safety perimeter during delivery.
• Require contactless payment. Disinfect contact materials before and after each delivery.

3) How to reassure online?

Reminding us of the essentials and promoting health for all:

• Demonstrate the measures in place to protect your teams, delivery personnel and customers.
• Explain your new hygiene rules.
• Explain the contactless delivery process .

Share information on the state of your business, the health and morale of your teams.

4) How to boost sales

At a time when customer acquisition is taking place online, it's essential to be visible wherever potential customers do their research: search engines, applications, social media, the media... At this time of year, communicating with your customers and your community about your services and your offer is essential!

• How do I get to the top of the Google results?

To be visible on Google to your customers - acquired or future - you need to activate four levers:

• • Opening hours, closing days, menus and prices: standardize the information available online and update it regularly!
  • Keywords: identify the keywords that best represent your restaurant and broadcast them on all platforms.
  • Customer reviews: respond to the reviews customers leave you on a daily basis, while inserting your most strategic keywords to build a link, analyze their feedback and build customer loyalty.
  • Photos: take appetizing shots and rename them with your keywords to improve your online visibility!

• Delivery platforms: climb to the top of the lists!

Competition is fierce on the various delivery platforms(UberEat, Deliveroo, Just Eat...). To stand out on the first pages and acquire new customers, we advise you to :

• • Be consistent with your schedules and menus.
  • Be operational: optimal preparation time, welcoming delivery personnel, no order cancellations or errors.
  • Set up promotions on the various platforms where you are present and play the special offers game!

• Visit social media What messages and content, at what times?

Are you open or closed? Have you launched your takeaway and/or delivery services? Do you deliver with your own teams, or are you present on platforms such as Uber Eat, Deliveroo, Just Eat? As you can see, keeping your potential or future customers informed is essential these days! Right from your profile, this essential information must be visible. To make it easier to take orders, you can insert the link that redirects to the online ordering service.

• • Reassure and show what you're doing to protect your teams, delivery personnel and customers. Be explicit about the implementation of your new hygiene rules and how contactless delivery works.
  • Entice your customers with a variety of content: recipe videos, team photos, raw products and dishes.

• Influencers: content shared by a trusted third party

An influencer is an individual who has built up an audience of several thousand people on one or more social media social networks, and shares his or her day-to-day life or part of it with his or her followers. To achieve an optimal partnership, you first need to identify the influencers whose social accounts carry publications of interest to your restaurant. Are they more interested in exceptional places? Are they more interested in a specific type of food: healthy food or pornfood? Do they prefer carefully decorated plates? Do they prefer selfies? Once you've chosen one or more, you need to think about your approach. Do you want a one-off relay or a long-term collaboration?

• Press relations building awareness through the media

It's essential to take care of both form and content before approaching journalists. Writing and formatting a press release are key steps in showcasing your restaurant. They give rise to the first impression journalists and influencers will have of your establishment. To produce the best possible press release, we recommend ..:

• • Structure your information in order of priority.
  • Tell a story to enhance the value of your establishment, and draw journalists into your world. So don't hesitate to embody the place you've built, to tell your story as a creator, your approach during this period of confinement and the reasons that led you to develop this place.
  • Don't neglect visuals and graphics. The press release must represent the visual identity you have chosen for your restaurant.
  • Leave your contact details at the end (address, phone number, e-mail).

To contact journalists in the best possible way, you need to :

• • Identify relevant media for your restaurant: guidebooks, women's magazines, daily newspapers, cultural magazines, specialized media, specific radio programs...
  • Target journalists according to their preferred topics and reconstruct their e-mail addresses.
  • Approach journalists effectively by explaining your approach in a concise and personalized way.

In a nutshell,

Adopting the right gestures, taking into account new hygiene rules and consumption patterns are tomorrow's challenges for players in the ecosystem. To help you reassure your potential customers online, boost your sales, and learn more about the steps involved in launching a successful click-and-collect and delivery business, Octopus HACCP is organizing a free training course especially for takeaways and deliveries! If you have any questions, you can ask us in comments on this blog, by e-mail at contact@malou.io. or by telephone on our direct line 01 70 62 93 83. Solidarity helps us to emerge stronger from these crises, so don't hesitate to ask!