By Tina McDonough, Senior Marketing Manager

Your menu and packaging are critical to your customer experience, now more than ever. We asked the Off-Premise Industry Council (OPIC) how they are adapting their catering menu and packaging strategies during the pandemic. 

Individual Packaging

“Highlighting ‘Individually Packaged’ items and increasing the Hot Meal offering in a box style meal and Family Meals.”
—Gracie Prasanson, Director of Sales at Jason’s Deli

“Individually packaged only. Move all of your offers to box lunches or other individually packaged items. Buffet-style set-ups create conditions for community spread of the virus through touching the same utensils. The same goes for beverages- if you normally serve gallons of tea or coffee, move to canned or bottled beverages.”
—James Clark, Founder of Clark Culinary Consulting

“We have completely turned our packaging and offerings to be for the individual rather than for a group. We proactively started offering this option to our guests without even asking in many cases before the pandemic was widespread. We started to individually wrap our sandwiches, wraps, and pastries to avoid exposure and touching. We moved all of our shared salads and platters to individual-sized portions to serve the same amount of people. In regards to moving away from shared utensils, we moved to individually packaged cutlery kits. We have also been very communicative with our clients letting them know the steps we are taking. We also have been reaching out to them to see how they are doing, what their current work situations are, and then making the necessary changes on our end to best fit their needs.
—Rebecca Squire, Catering Sales Manager at Fresh City

“We are adding more individualized meals for groups. We have both hot and cold offerings so guests can eat them now or later.”
—Anna Williams, Director of Ops Excellence at Brinker

Menu Modifications

“Modify your menu: it’s time to pare down your inventory and your offerings. Eliminate any low-margin menu items, any items that have single-use ingredients, items with short shelf life (such as fresh fish), and any items that don’t travel well. Focus your offerings on items that keep and reheat well (pasta, stir fry, etc.), as many people are ordering extra food for leftovers.”
—James Clark, Founder of Clark Culinary Consulting

“We have pivoted our direction slightly and are offering more takeout style meals versus the traditional catering menu. We are offering these for takeout/curbside pick up in our retail location and through delivery service for our dedicated catering facility. We are offering delivery though our own team as well as partnering with 3rd parties.
—Rebecca Squire, Catering Sales Manager at Fresh City

“Our latest initiative is to try to help serve the people where they are, and that is at home. We are now going to be offering a meal delivery service that would allow us to bring fully prepared meals to families who are home and in need of feeding their families. Everyone has so much on their plate. Who has time to worry about dinner? We want to be able to help provide healthy meals to families while everyone is at home. We offer this through our own delivery service and it is a completely contactless delivery for our guests to ensure their safety. We are creating full meals that are completely different than our typical menu through our culinary innovation team. These will be fully cooked & just needed to be heated for families to enjoy when they are ready!”
—Rebecca Squire, Catering Sales Manager at Fresh City

Check back for more strategies from OPIC. Want to update your ezCater menu with individually packaged items? Reach out today.

Related article: Reach More Customers with Individually Packaged Menu Items 

Gracie Prasanson, Director of Sales at Jason’s Deli	James Clark, Founder of Clark Culinary Consulting	Rebecca Squire, Catering Sales Manager at Fresh City	Anna Williams, Director of Ops Excellence at Brinker