Offering precooked food is a business strategy employed by some restaurants.
Pre-cooked foods help chefs deliver food faster to hungry restaurant patrons. In the book "Good Food Tastes Good," Carol Hart explains that Tyson sells pre-cooked chicken wings to restaurants all over the country and gives the restaurants permission to give them titles like "Small Town Restaurant's Famous Wings." The truth is that more often than not those wings and the sauces are precooked by the manufacturer. Working mothers save time with precooked meals. When selling precooked foods, sell the convenience first, then the taste second.
Instructions
Menu and Packaging
1. Make a list of the foods that you are best at cooking and you think will have the highest chance of success in the market. Organize a taste test. Ask grocery store managers what are the top selling precooked selections in their stores. Interview chefs from various restaurants to see which precooked foods they purchase the most.
2. Contact your local health department and get the specifications for refrigerating, heating and storing foods to sell to the public. Buy cooling and heating units. Schedule a health inspector visit to approve your cooking and preparation area for food sales to the public.
3. Develop a distinct brand name for your food line that is separate from your business. If you want to keep your business name, develop a catchy brand slogan. Test several slogans until multiple people agree that it is the one that you should go with.
4. Hire a graphic designer and decide on packaging options. Use colors from the company's brand image color palette for all products. Think about the way that Swanson uses red packaging for regular products and white packaging for Lean Cuisine.
5. Construct a website for the new line of food products. Hire a professional photographer familiar with photographing food so that the food looks appetizing to the public.
Selling to Businesses
6. Build a mailing list of all the grocery stores and restaurants in the state. Create a brochure of your new food product line. Add plenty of pictures of your appetizing new entrees and a few short statements about why people will love eating and buying your precooked dishes.
7. Send the brochure to the buying department of all the major grocery stores in the state or country and to the owners of independent grocers. Follow up with a phone call. Ask for a chance to come to the store and bring samples for the executives to taste.
8. Show up on time to the meeting. Bring along plenty of samples and the sales figures for similar food items sold in the state and elsewhere. Close the meeting by asking the grocer when would they like to place its first order.
9. Schedule a separate presentation for chefs. Send your brochure and an invitation letter. Allow the chefs to taste your foods. Pass out ordering forms and encourage them to place their first order before they leave.
Selling to Consumers
10. Offer samples in local grocery stores or in your own store. Hire an employee with an attractive personality to be in charge of inviting people over to taste a sample.
11. Send out a press release to news representatives in the state. Promote the fact that a local company has broken into the precooked food business. Write about how your precooked meals will save time for working families who are too tired to cook when they get home.
12. Offer a promotion for the first few months that your products are carried in the grocery stores. You can offer a "buy one, get one free" promotion, a percentage-off discount or any number of purchase incentives. Print a coupon in the Sunday paper. Contact the newspapers' advertising sales departments and discuss your options.
Tags: grocery stores, first order, food business, foods sell, precooked food business, precooked foods