Healthy food is equal to a healthy body. We hit gyms, do yoga, maintain a diet, walk, run and do whatnot to keep ourselves fit. But even after all these, it comes down to food. If we don’t eat healthy food and maintain a balanced diet then it is next to impossible to stay fit. The crux of this problem is being busy all the time to the point of not being able to cook in today’s world on a daily basis. At that point, we depend on store-bought food which is of course not always healthy.
In the lockdown too, we saw a demand for home-based cooked food services, as many of the millennials stay alone and need food from outside to survive. At this age, considering the situation, the tiffin business is in high demand. And if it is an online service, where customers just have to call or text or place orders on the applications, then it is like a blessing to them benefitting the brand.
What is an Online Tiffin Business?
Online Tiffin business is where you cook food from your kitchen and deliver it to different offices, factories, homes, schools and colleges. Here the customers need to place the order online through your app, a website, WhatsApp or over a phone call. Payment would also be done via online methods.
8 Tips To Start An Online Tiffin Business Successfully →
- Register for your License:
For your business to run without any problems, you need to make it legal. For that, you need to register your business at a designated government office and get the licenses that are required to run your business legally. Once you apply for it, proper inspections will be carried out. Once your kitchen, background and your office get inspected, you will be given the catering license. You need to come clean before the state’s food and sanitation requirements.
- Find the Target Customers
You need to scrutinize your market to get bulk orders. You need to promote your business in your locality first. Then you should promote it on social platforms. You need to understand the user base who are interested in your services, who are those interested ones, where are they located, how far are they from your place and what are their lifestyle. In this way, you will get an idea of your target customers. Utilizing this information you can create menus and offers, to make them return customers.
- Invest in Good Equipment
For your online tiffin business to run, you have to cook good quality food. But for that, you need good utilitarian equipment, like proper utensils of different sizes, mixer, kettle, microwave, oven, grillers, spatula, spoons, plates and many more. Including technically advanced equipment will only help in cooking and delivering tiffins efficiently. As you are in tiffin service, you have to invest in good packages to deliver your food safely. You can opt for good steel or plastic boxes. To reduce the carbon footprint on Earth, you can opt for biodegradable boxes.
- Setting up the Menu
Setting up the menu needs a lot of research and investigation. You need to set it up based on your target customers. You need to keep in mind the abilities that you can cook which will taste good and be healthy too. Then again you need to focus on such dishes that can help in time management too as there will be bulk orders which are supposed to be delivered on designated time daily. Keeping all this in mind, set up a menu which looks and tastes good and incurs you profit and fame too. Keeping set menus, reorganizing the menu on weekends for the special touch and creating combos are some great ways to start with. Do not forget that you can change the menu whenever you wish to.
- Setting Up the Price
Without profit, your business would not sustain for a long time. And for that, you need to set up a price, which gives you profit and also is reasonable to your customers. While pricing your food, you need to hold into account many points –
- Needs to be reasonable
- Should not be overpriced
- You make profits
- Price should include raw material costs, establishment costs, employee costs and your labour too
Based on this, fix your price but remember you need to change the price from time to time to establish your business too. Give offers and discounts based on the number of orders per customer is requesting.
- Delivery Process
When you are opening an online tiffin business, keep in mind that you have to deliver the food too. There are many who choose separate delivery service providers to do this part. If you can do it yourself then it is going to be more profitable. If you are outsourcing it, then be very specific about timely delivery of your food along with being extra careful else your customers will be very disappointed to get cold food with leakages. In case you are appointing your own delivery executives, you can assure yourself about the time and about safe deliveries. You can charge according to that too.
- Establishing Online Mode
As your tiffin business is an online one, you need to decide how you will operate it, i.e., through an e-commerce site, a mobile application or WhatsApp. If you want to invest in giving your business a professional look, you can opt for your own mobile app. oneapp offers you your own web store within the app that can be managed with onefooddialer software application. It not only helps streamline your business but also finds your customers easily.
Are you looking to start a tiffin business? What is the glitch area you are facing, share with us in the comments.