Posted by Brian Shilhavy on Apr 22, 2020
One of the effects of the Coronavirus lock downs is that many people who had previously eaten most of their meals outside the home now are suddenly faced with having to prepare meals every day.
This is a significant portion of the population. At home deliveries are at an all time high as a result. But most of the restaurants still in business are national chain restaurants, while local restaurants that offer more nutritious meals and maybe were not involved in food delivery services previously, are going out of business as they cannot compete.
Healthy Traditions offers some of the best food available anywhere, but we sell very little in the way of prepared foods, and no prepared meals at this time.
However, you, our beloved customers, are some of the most health conscious consumers in the U.S.! And most of you know how to prepare nutritious meals, as you have been doing long before this current crisis.
We would like to explore the possibility of networking our customers who are in a position to cook meals with those in your neighborhood who would be happy to pay for your services to prepare meals for them.
For those who are interested in offering this kind of service to your local community, please contact us and put “Cook for Neighbors” in the subject of your email.
Note that it would be up to you to research your state’s laws regarding private meal services, which varies from state to state, and possibly even from county to county within your state.
Most states have “Cottage Food Laws” that allow for some food prepared in one’s own kitchen to be sold to the public in certain situations without having your kitchen inspected and/or certified.
To ease the concerns of your potential future customers, it may be helpful for you to invest a little bit of time in obtaining a Food Safety/Food Handler’s license, which can generally be done online.
ServSafe is one of the more popular ones, but I am sure there are others as well.
Other suggestions for aspiring home-cook entrepreneurs would be to develop a brochure for the types of meals you are offering, including statements about ingredients and allergy concerns. Pictures of your kitchen area where you will prepare the meals might be a good idea also.
If there is enough interest in this idea, Healthy Traditions would develop directories of these home cooks in each state, and offer that to the public for free. We just ask that you purchase at least some of your ingredients from us, and if you want us to handle online sales for ordering, we would charge a fee for that service to cover our costs.
Have other ideas of how to feed hungry people during the lock downs? Comment below!
