With staff keen to work and high demand for freshly cooked restaurant-quality food in his group's affluent Hertfordshire location, Andrei Lussmann is offering ready made meals that last around three days for customers to heat up at home.
20% is click and collect but the rest is delivered by the team. On the first weekend Lussmanns made 50 to 60 deliveries but is now delivering to in excess of 300 households in and around St Albans and Harpenden.
“After 30 years of running a restaurant company we turned our business into an e-commerce site within 30 hours,” he says. “I have a new respect for delivery and all the logistics behind it. Packaging and then delivering are parts of the puzzle we have never had to worry about. It’s been very demanding, and something that required us to learn very quickly.”
Lussmann warns that business owners need to think carefully about pivoting to offer takeaway and delivery. “We all have a certain amount of debt. You have to ensure you’re not adding more debt. It’s no point having a fantastic food to go business if all it’s doing is adding more debt onto a debt pile."
#UnitedWeStand has been created by William Reed hospitality titles BigHospitality, Restaurant magazine and Morning Advertiser and is supported by Arla Pro, Britvic, Coca-Cola European Partners, McCain and Unilever Food Solutions.To download this podcast via iTunes click here.
