Looking to join the Food Industry in Meal Prep? Here’s what you need to know

Barriers to entry in the Meal Prep Business

In the meal prep space, the barriers to entry in this business are surprisingly low if you are happy to start modestly while you learn the business. I’d personally recommend starting in two stages. The first is to do it as quickly and inexpensively as possible. After you are making profits, have found your actual niche and some of the more effective ways to promote, you can start to invest more time and money on creating something more impressive.

This article is about how to get started as quickly, simply and inexpensively as possible.

 Your quick-start guide  

1. Work out a niche and then a name.  
2. Create a website where you can change your content around as you adjust within your market, seeing what works and doesn’t work.  
3. Before starting to create your recipes, would be the best time to get started on the Meallogix Platform. This is an amazing company that has put together almost everything you will need for the automated day-day running of your business. It is a monthly subscription service in the cloud that was specifically built to help you run your meal preparation service. If you join at this stage, you can start by uploading your recipes directly into this platform and save yourself more time than you want to count in moving over your recipes into this platform later on. Meallogix also offers a state-of-the-art shopping cart onto which you can hook your website (but more of that later).  

The other huge advantage to being on the Meallogix platform is that it will help you completely automate your business operations creating your shopping lists based on your orders, to arranging discounted but excellent delivery of your meals directly to your customers. Getting set up now, while you are creating your business would be the perfect sequence and give you a great head start. More details at https://www.meallogix.com

4. You will need to get legal so simply refer to (link to How to Legally Start a Meal Preparation Service article). As part of this step, you will have a kitchen and will be legally able to run it.  

5. Open a business bank account under the business name.  

6. Make it possible for your customers to buy from you by creating a fantastic shopping cart. The shopping cart is where your customers will buy and to create your own is expensive and you would risk creating something you don’t actually want. In our experience, meal prep operators often change their minds as to what kind of shopping cart would work best for their niche.  

Meallogix offers the best in the business and is continuing to evolve it specifically for the meal preparation business.  

7. If you haven’t already set yourself up with food distributors on the Meallogix platform directly (maybe because you are yet big enough to meet their minimum ordering requirements), then set yourself up with wholesale warehouses you can walk into and physically buy from like Restaurant Depot and Sams Club or Costco.  

8. Promote: Before opening your doors would be a great time to lay the foundations of your promotion.

Here is a brief checklist of things to do at this stage (but make sure that all contact details are identical, including the street address you use for your business):

a. Create a Google listing (and get verified)

b. Create a Zell listing (and get verified)

c. Create a social media presence. Recommended are Facebook and Instagram but it is more important for you to use the platforms where you are the most comfortable and do it well.

d. Create some kind of list of every prospect you can possibly think of (including anyone who ever said they might be interested in buying your food).

e. Do a soft promotion to your friends, acquaintances and anyone along the way who expressed interest in your business.

f. Set up your grand opening (first cooking day), widely promote using social media, email blasts, phone calls, texts, etc. and sign up everyone you can think of and start!  

What’s next?

Now you have started, you can iron out the bugs. Hopefully, your food is good enough that most of your first customers will sign up again and give you some referrals and you can really start to promote and scale up your company.

Your Job is Hard, We’re Here to Make it Easier

You’re a chef who makes delicious meals for families to enjoy when they don’t have the time or don’t have the ability to do so. That’s amazing! You’re amazing. But it is also a lot of hard work. We know. We’re a team of former meal prep operators who had to toil away on spreadsheets to scale recipes, never knew our profit margin, and spent way too much on ingredients.  

That’s why we built Meallogix. So that you can be creative and do what you do best, and we can take care of the business aspects by automating your operations. Oh, and we help you get better prices on ingredients. And, we have special partnerships with Doordash and Postmates getting you significant (like one month free) deals on your deliveries. Yea. We’re pretty amazing too.  

Sign up for a quick demo to see all the features Meallogix has to offer to help you automate your meal prep business, including our support for ingredients and meal delivery. 

Are You Paying Too Much For Your Ingredients? Checkout How to Save Money On Your Ingredients

For any restaurant and food chain business, ingredient cost may be a big expense. Every day, restaurants under or overspend on ingredients. On a monthly basis, this expense can be a big amount of money. Ted Stearns and his meal prep plans prove beneficial for restaurant owners.

• An efficient Food costing service will help in cutting down the overall cost of meal preparation.

• The system can be used by both small and big sized restaurants and food chains.

• The automated software can entirely be customized to meet individual requirements.  

So it is obvious that food inventory software can help take benefit of a fully automated meal prep system for inventory management.  It offers improved POS for restaurant owners, especially if you are new to the food business. 

Avoid Overinvesting in Ingredient Purchase

The most important benefits of implementing food service management software are that you don’t have to make an investment in overstocking your restaurant with unwanted ingredients. For each meal, the system can update your kitchen staff with the right amount of ingredients needed.

Advanced Ted Stearns system will notify the chef and restaurant owner of the number of ingredients they may need for preparing any meal as per order.

Automated Inventory

As the system is automated so it is certain that it makes tracking easy process. The moment you implement automated meal prep business plans it is certain that your inventory management can be taken up to an entirely new level.

The system will make it possible for chef and restaurant owners to maintain perfect ingredient counts for each meal. So if you need an exact ingredient for a single hot dog, then food inventory software will place an order for the exact ingredient required for a single hot dog.

Maintain Exact Inventory Counts

As the foodservice management software is very much accurate so it provides exact inventory count on a daily basis for restaurant owners. This simple technique helps maintain updated ingredient inventory at the restaurant.

Avoids Guess Games

For new chefs and restaurant owners, ordering an exact level of ingredient for food preparation may only mean making a wild guess. In most cases, the guess may mean over or under ordering ingredients. Now with implementing meal prep business plans, it is certain that you may not have to face the dilemma of over or under ordering ingredients for your meals.

Accurate Reports

The most important benefit of automated Food costing service is that at month end your financial reports can be more accurate. This proves beneficial as you instantly know of your investments and profits with every meal prepared in your restaurant.

Ted Stearns

The moment your restaurant’s inventory management system is advanced, it becomes possible to manage inventory and ingredient counts on a daily basis. It will help in lowering the overall cost of your meals in the restaurant.

Ever Wonder What Your Actual Costs Are For A Recipe

Know With Our Recipe Costing Software

Future of Meal Prep

Restaurant owners have this ongoing inner conflict about running their business profitably. At times, it might look like a philosophical misgiving but the reality is that restaurant owners must find a way to attract more customers.

According to Ted Stearns CEO of Meallogix, recipe costing software, the fact boils down to the right pricing. Now, a smart owner would always know this fact.

How to Know Recipe Cost?

Undoubtedly, you can make a vague and abstract guess but that is not going to help you in getting the real recipe cost. In fact, you should use Catering Recipe Costing Software that can pull the orders and fetch you the ingredients that are used to cook the meals.

In this way, you can know exactly how must ingredients are used and how much ingredients you need to cook the meals. In fact, costing software is not only about pulling the ingredient list, but it can also be more than that.

You can find software that can even calculate the calorie value of each preparation that you make. Undoubtedly, that puts you in a better position to prepare healthy meals through the use of Catering Recipe Costing Software.

So, if you have been wondering about your recipe cost, then here is something that you can use and that is catering software to calculate the ingredient and find out the cost.

How to find and use good software:

•      You must find software that has better features. In fact, you must look at the features briefly before buying the catering software.
•      You must find an app that is easy to use. For example, you can find software that can give you the recipe cost as well as it can help you buy the ingredients through the app, in a nutshell, it must be helpful in all the aspects are your business.
•      You should get a trial version to find out whether you can work with the tool or not before deploying it into your business workflow.

The advantages can be limitless of using meal prep software. A catering app not only helps you in getting the recipe cost but also helps you manage inventory, streamlining the ordering and delivery of food and also helping other organizational and departmental workflows too.

That means you should search for good meal prep software that can add value to your business and give you a better edge over your competitors. The app can be instrumental in cooking good meals and proper pricing, which in return give you more customers.

Ted Stearns Says

Recipe Costing Software would be a good investment for the restaurant owners. Undoubtedly, the advantage of automating your restaurant business cannot be explained in one line because there are immense benefits of deploying the tool. All you need to do is to get meal prep software today for your restaurant.

How to Move Away From Spreadsheet to Automate Your Meal Prep Business

Are you in a Meal Prep Business?

Are you in a meal prep business? Then, maintaining a business is mandatory. Gone are the day when you maintain the business in the spreadsheet. In Meal Prep Business, automate software makes your life easy. The software is design in such a manner that it will make the service easy and fast.  

Services that software offers

If you want to give a meal planning service, then you need to maintain everything properly. Business is all about maintenance. A software automates and even simplifies the business. It offers you the following service:  

·         Ingredient ordering with group discount 

·         3rd party delivery provider 

·         Vendor pricing on real-time 

·          Recipe costing 

All these services will help you prepare fresh meals for the final user. Food prep business is all about giving the best meal to the customers. Hence, you cannot take any risk. You will give the best service.  

A meal prep automation software works on your behalf. It will give all the details on point. You can rely on the features of the software.  

Maintenance of Software  

Maintaining your business through software keeps you on foot at every step. The team that maintains the software knows the use of the software well. The team will decide the price of the best quality of food.  

They ensure that you get quick fresh meal delivery to the clients. A meal prep automation software takes all the pain away. You can have 100% trust in the software.  

When you install the software for the meal business, you will get the best assistance. If you offer a meal planning service, then you should know the details of the software. The expert of the software will transfer the knowledge of the automation for 30 minutes.  

The software gives the details of the maintenance. You can maintain your entire Meal Prep Business with the help of the business. You just a computer and internet to update all the details of your business.  

Price of the Software  

The software saves time, energy and money. You can rely on the software for the best use. It gives you a 100% guarantee service. Using software reduces the chance of mistakes in your business. Hence, you should ensure that you maintain the software thoroughly.  

You can keep track of every detail of your food prep business. The user interface of the software is easy to understand. You will get quality service and your customers will be happy. You can never go wrong in your business.  

Choose the Best Price Package

There is different pricing of the software. Depend on the price package you will receive the features of the service. So, make sure you choose the best price package that will give the best package for your food prep business. 

5 Steps to Automate 80% of Your Meal Prep Business

Are Manual Processes Consuming Your Time?

5 Steps to Automate 80% of Your Meal Prep Business

Majority Restaurants are looking around to automate their business. Implement management software helps in the transition from paper to a digital platform. The automation can be implemented for day-to-day works in your restaurant.  

• You can select restaurant management software that can offer higher speed and accuracy levels.

• The system can be implemented in major sectors like order taking and cash maintenance.

• It helps in speeding up the process of delivery at the customer end.  

Streamline Your Entire Meal Prep Business

When selecting, you should pick one that is just right for your Meal Prep Business. The system should be efficient in handling multiple counters at the restaurant. With an effective system, you can expect to automate most parts of your business.

 1 – Select the Unified System

The moment you select meal prep software you have to ensure that it offers unified solutions for your business. This will help in setting up multiple touch screen points, table and floor management and order taking tasks.

You should select a system that can look into various aspects including order management, deliver selection, Food ERP and inventory management as well. An effective system will help streamline most areas of your restaurant business.

2 – Advanced Operations

Within a restaurant business, time is more valuable. It is certain that the food delivery software you select should product statics and reports instantly with a single click. This process is helpful for speeding up in-house tasks and operations.

This simple implementation will also eliminate manual errors if any, from your business. 

3 – High Reliability and Speed

Automation is one feature that can speed up the process of order taking and bill generation. You can implement restaurant management software that is helpful for setting up POS systems at various locations in the restaurant.

Customers may not have to wait for the stewardess to generate a bill or even take orders. Using smart racking screens you can also track the customer’s order in real-time. AdvancedMeal Prep Business also provides with order details, ingredients and add-on features for the customer on the screens.

4 – Replenishment and Inventory

These two above mentioned tasks are difficult for restaurants to manage manually. Lack of inventory and stocks also lead to order cancellation in most cases. Implementing meal prep software will also help keep track of inventory available for restaurant owners and check staff.

So if anything needs to be added to the existing inventory list, the Food ERP Software will notify in advance. This is beneficial in offering high-quality customer satisfaction.

5 – Algorithm Factor

Data management is an important factor offered by food delivery software. An automated system can be managed online on multiple platforms including mobile phones. This eliminates the need to maintain data manually.

As far as customers are concerned, they can easily place an order using mobile apps. For restaurant owners, make order predictions earlier in time is also possible.  

How Meal Prep Software Automates Your Business and Saves You Time and Money

How Meal Prep Software Automated Your Business 

The digital world has changed the way business houses operate their business. In fact, the food and restaurant industry have come a long way far. 

If you are a restaurant, then you should consider deploying a meal planning software. This will help you in getting things better, faster and more efficient.

Advantages of Meal Planning Software:

· The study suggests that if you automate meal planning through the help of software, you will save 8-20 percent of the time that you would otherwise have sent on planning manually

· It will help you in saving 5 to 20 percent on the ingredient cost that would have been; terribly impossible to save otherwise

· You can improve the delivery of food to your clients significantly thus improving customer satisfaction level.

The above-stated points are key advantages of automated software for the Meal prep business service. However, you must be able to get the best software. Let’s have a look at a few key points for that.

Key Factors for Deploying Smart Meal Planning System:

You have to get software for automate meal planning that is effective. That means you have to find out about the effectiveness of the software.  

All you need to know is to find out how many food business houses use the tool and what they have to say. This can be found out by talking to the users or reading some reviews on the website or review sites.  

You should also find out what features the software has. This can be found by looking at the tool and specifications on the very app itself. For instance, there are tools to help you in planning your meals, deciding upon the ingredients, inventory and third party delivery.

How It Would Help?

In a nutshell, the app or the meal planning software will bring everything into sync. This will help you in getting things more organized and managed. This would result in cost-saving, client satisfaction, and profitability.  

You must find out a software provider that can help you understand the tool. At times, the tools might throw curve balls. Hence, you must have a company that gives you assistance to learn the tool for effective use.  

Finally, you should also be looking at the cost of deploying the tool in your food business. If possible you can try a trial version for a few days to understand the efficacy of the tool so that you can decide whether you need it or not. If you want your Meal prep business service to work effectively, then you have to automate the business. For that, you have to find best-automated tools. The points and the advantages that are discusses above must be understood clearly before you deploy the tools in the business.