Every industry has essential tools to help business owners save time, grow sales and engage better with their customers – The hospitality industry is no different.

The first movers of the meal prep delivery game have spent thousands of dollars developing their tools to automate logistics processes, find the cheapest materials purchased in bulk and many more laborious tasks that take a lot of time, effort and more importantly here, MONEY. These softwares and the research that went into building them are not small investments and require an owner to invest a ton of time into learning how they work to re-create their own version that works specifically for their purposes.

Meal Prep Software to Automate Logistics

The Meal Prep industry is still relatively new and growing rapidly each year as consumers make the shift to eating more at home and relying on these providers to curate tasty and healthy meals for them. Every chef that starts out to create a meal prep company relies on their experience in the kitchen to make consumers love their food – but that’s where the expertise somethings stops. They need a helping hand (a virtual-sous-chef) that can take their business to the next level and marketing their amazing meals to the public.

Meal Prep Software like KitchenFuel are able to automate many of the supply chain issues of tracking orders, making cooking reports and updating your rotating menus. Without something to help with this, you’re just left with a stagnant website off Shopify or other providers that is just that, a website. Customers these days want an experience and you as the owner need to enable that with a beautifully designed website made by an industry leader that knows how to attract them and provide that unbeatable customer service to them.

Let’s jump into the top 3 reasons Meal Prep companies need some sort of automation software:

Websites are easy to create, Experiences are harder

Mouthwatering images, tasty meal descriptions and cheap prices are not enough these days to keep a customer coming back. Competition is high and you need to partner with experts to design a website that is proven to convert more sales, specifically in the meal prep industry.

Subscription Process

With many meal delivery models out there it is crucial that your customers understand exactly what they’re getting, when they’re getting it and how much they’re being charged. So many companies miss this step and lose customers that didn’t realize things like extra protein costing more or that the shipping discount was only for the first week. Clearly defined timelines and steps in the ordering process create an experience for the end-user that they won’t forget and when compared to any competitors sites they reference, it will have a huge impact on them coming back to you each week.

Easy-to-Use Interface

Make it seamless to order from you in as little clicks as possible. Make the checkout process quick and easy. Have images that scale properly and are always properly formatted. These simple things that may seem common sense actual deter a lot of customers from purchasing when it’s done incorrectly. Consumers have grown to expect perfection on a company’s online presence and that starts with how quickly your page loads. Removing bulky software and streamlining your website will allow you to have optimal loading speed that will enable your customers to navigate through your site, right to the point of purchase extremely easily.

Mobile optimized is an obvious trend in today’s society, but what does it mean? Your website looks different when viewed on a phone and 56% of our clients’ customers order through mobile. Optimizing your website so the ordering process is fully responsive on mobile is essential to making the customer experience perfect. First impressions are everything, so if your customers use mobile you better be prepared!

SEO Optimized

Converting a potential customer is only half the battle. First, you’ll need to actually get them to your website and interested enough to browse your products. Two main ways to do this are through generating paid or organic traffic. Paid cost money and there are a million marketing experts that can help you there, so let’s stick to what we know best: organic. This comes from people searching things like “meal prep delivery near me” in Google. You need to have the right terminology, tags, images, locations, etc. to rank high enough to be one of those first options that pop up. SEO optimization isn’t something that happens by accident so it’s important to consider not just the visual appeal of your website, but also how functional it is.

Learn more about important aspects of the front-end sales site.

Start with a meal prep software that can scale with you.

Spend time on what you love - the cooking!

Chefs and owners are creatives that bring meals to life with their passion for food. What no one wants to do is waste their weekends updating their menu for the upcoming week, figuring out where all your deliveries are going to go. Ensuring that you have the proper tools to update, track and scale your business should be just as essential as the meals themselves.

Automatic Rotating Menus

Plan your menus months in advance with the confidence that you only have to do it once. Set up a time and day that you want each new menu to go live on your website and it will auto-update saving you weekly admin time making sure everything’s got the new pictures and descriptions. This tool is underrated in its automation, getting you back your weekend and late nights of fixing your menus.

Reports for Every Purpose

Order Reports (who ordered which meals and where do they need to be delivered), Label Printing Reports (meal information and macros printing integrations) and Cooking Reports (how many of each order need to be made) are just some of the tools that save meal prep owners an extensive amount of time of admin work each week.

Tags, Categories and Nutritional Information

Keeping your customers informed should be a top priority as the trend towards healthy eating becomes even more prevalent. Use Tags to identify specific diets and lifestyle options or display allergy considerations like nut-free or gluten-free. Categories can help you segment your menu for quickly choosing which items appeal to each consumer so you can reach a wider audience.

Finally, the all important nutritional information will allow you to create each menu item pre-defining the allergens, and ingredients to show your customers the amazing quality of your meals. Pair that with macros for label printing and quick visualizations of hitting their goals and they will get consumed by the transparency and trust you put behind your products.

These are just some of the key features of KitchenFuel’s software so learn more about our back-end software.

Prepare for the Future with Tools for Growth

So now you’re set up with a beautiful website and the software to back up your growing meal prep business, what now?

Coupons/Discounts

Getting new customers can be tough, but money talks! Provide first-time order discounts or coupons for free meals to get them hooked! If your meals are as tasty as they look, they’ll be sure to come back the next week for more!

Referral Programs

If that isn’t enough, now you have loyal customers that order every week. SO why don’t you take advantage of this and turn these customers into Brand Ambassadors and immediately have a team to help market your company? Word-of-mouth is the best form of advertising these days and seeing what your friends and family are ordering (and LOVING) can go a long way!

Subscription Options

Have your customers been loving your meals, but suddenly made a lifestyle change to start a new diet? Get them set up with a meal plan curated by your chefs designed to help lose weight it a healthy way.

Customers asking for a more vegan-friendly menu? Expand to partner with a local vegan restaurant or create your own options and reach that new demographic right away!

The possibilities are endless for customizing the experience that you create for your customers. The difficulty is that all these customizations come at the price of simplicity. Note to fear though, KitchenFuel automates the tracking across all these different plans to ensure you know exactly where to place emphasis on your business and where you’re opportunities are for further growth.

Whatever your reasons for getting started, having the right Meal Prep Software can make a huge difference in your business.

Want to see KitchenFuel in action?

We get it, choosing a new tool to help you run your meal prep business is a big deal.
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3 Reasons How Meal Prep Software Helps Save Owners Time