Responding to new ways of working

Whether you’re opening earlier for breakfast, staying open later for dinner, or offering a full 24-hour service, we’re here to help, whatever practical and other constraints you have to work with.

Breakfast

From bacon baps to a full English, here are some simple guidelines to help you serve a great breakfast safely

• Pre- wrap bacon or sausage baps; hold them on the hotplate to speed up service
• Take orders and make up take-out boxes for people to eat at their desk or in a designated area
• Keep choices of baked pastries, snacks and confectionery to a minimum to speed the decision process and minimise queues
• Make up fruit, yoghurt, muesli pots as grab-and-go instead of self-help bars to speed service and reduce the risk of contamination
• Use disposable cups, lids and stirrers for all hot beverages and suitable containers for all food

Lunch

Our one-week menu plan ensures a balanced choice across the week, with the flexibility to choose your beef, chicken, fish, pork and plant-based dishes. Your seating area will determine how many customers can dine at any one time: to keep people safe and maintain throughflow, we recommend the following:

• Offer just one main and one plant-based dish to speed up decisions and avoid queues
• Box salads, fruit salad and any toppings for jacket potatoes to reduce contamination risks
• Take pre-orders online if feasible or set up a next day ordering system
• Set up a separate food-to-go express till to reduce queuing
• Consider set prices or meal deals to speed things up at the till
• Have a cleaning team constantly working at peak times to increase safety and provide reassurance
• Make the restaurant cashless if possible
• Replace self-service sauces and condiments with sachets

Coffee Shop

Coffee shop products ensure customers have access to refreshment when required throughout the day. To reduce the risk of contamination, and speed up service, you could consider the following:

• Use disposable cups, lids and stirrers
• Wrap all cakes, pastries and biscuits
• Reduce the choice of sandwiches, cakes and hot food to help speed up decisions and payment
• Set up order-in-advance, click-and-collect or takeaway facilities through a workplace app or similar
• Deliver cake and tea to desks by trolley

Vending

Depending on your vending machine, we can provide everything from crisps, drinks and snacks to pre-packaged meals that simply need microwaving. Extra vending machines can reduce numbers using staff restaurants and mitigate shorter opening hours or set times for different groups. You need to:

• Keep vending machines full to maximise sales per customer visit
• Keep to silver pricing (5 and 10 pence pieces) to help alleviate any additional handling of money for catering staff
• Reduce the options to speed up decisions and encourage purchases - double or triple face the most popular items
• Create a ‘vending weekly menu’ rota to offer new lines and ensure choice and variety are available