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Delivery trend grows amid coronavirus restrictions

Here are 14 stories from the last few months describing how operators in onsite dining markets have set up various kinds of food delivery programs to serve customers while conforming to COVID-related protocols.

Mike Buzalka, Executive Features Editor

August 19, 2020

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Back in the day—that is, pre-COVID—delivery was a specialized niche service in onsite dining programs, confined mainly to a few college and corporate campuses. But since the pandemic hit, more operators have begun to explore—and deploy—meal delivery as both a safe, socially distanced way to get food to customers, and as one that can increase business at a time when in-person patrons are scarce and skittish.

Delivery is growing in a variety of ways, from robots trundling their way across campuses—and sometimes off campuses to neighboring communities—to repurposed dining staff taking food to employees in businesses and institutions, to residents in senior living communities and to students and their families in school districts.

Meal delivery of course requires a separate set of protocols from food intended to be served onsite, or even as pre-packaged grab and go. Packaging, storage, meal composition and production schedules all are affected, and operators who have developed meal delivery programs recently have been refining these various techniques and strategies. Food Management has been covering this trend, and here is a roundup of some of the stories we’ve done on meal delivery since the advent of the COVID pandemic.

About the Author

Mike Buzalka

Executive Features Editor, Food Management

Mike Buzalka is executive features editor for Food Management and contributing editor to Restaurant Hospitality, Supermarket News and Nation’s Restaurant News. On Food Management, Mike has lead responsibility for compiling the annual Top 50 Contract Management Companies as well as the K-12, College, Hospital and Senior Dining Power Players listings. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English Literature from John Carroll University. Before joining Food Management in 1998, he served as for eight years as assistant editor and then editor of Foodservice Distributor magazine. Mike’s personal interests range from local sports such as the Cleveland Indians and Browns to classic and modern literature, history and politics.

Mike Buzalka’s areas of expertise include operations, innovation and technology topics in onsite foodservice industry markets like K-12 Schools, Higher Education, Healthcare and Business & Industry.

Mike Buzalka’s experience:

Executive Features Editor, Food Management magazine (2010-present)

Contributing Editor, Restaurant Hospitality, Supermarket News and Nation’s Restaurant News (2016-present)

Associate Editor, Food Management magazine (1998-2010)

Editor, Foodservice Distributor magazine (1997-1998)

Assistant Editor, Foodservice Distributor magazine (1989-1997)

 

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