Best Practices for Safe and Appetizing Takeout

Tips to minimize touchpoints, create a great customer experience and keep your carbon footprint in check.

With local restrictions keeping many restaurant dining rooms closed or at half capacity, takeout is the main way restaurants are keeping their operations afloat. But takeout has its issues – including a lack of profitability, adding to your carbon footprint, possibly allowing more points of contact with different people and unattractive presentations of your best menu items upon final delivery. Takeout meals may be the first consumer impression for many restaurants now, so use the right packaging and delivery methods for appetizing presentations!

• Use the right packaging to make sure when the customer opens their meal, it still appears as appetizing as if the Chef plated it themselves

• Clear lids will also help employees and customers verify contents without having to touch/reopen containers

• Use welled packaging for full meals, to keep side dishes from becoming intermingled in transport

• Use vented lids for fried foods to avoid wilting

• Use tamper-evident methods for packaging, including sticker systems

• Double bag any takeout that will be delivered by a third party

• Eliminate touchpoints by having a specific location for order pickup and do not allow self-serve for condiments or cutlery

• Whenever possible, use packaging that serves as microwave dish, plate/bowl and storage container

More demand for packaging means more waste, so consider sustainable choices like the Earth Choice line from entegra’s contracted supplier Pactiv.

– Reduce waste by using products that use 50 percent mineral materials

– Recycle by using PET containers with a minimum 25 percent post-consumer content