For all businesses it is fundamentally important to be able to both attract and to retain customers, and it is no different for takeaways and other food retailers. For those kinds of businesses, then, how they display their food can be critically important when it comes to both enticing new custom and hanging on to the custom they already have.
When we talk about displaying food in that context, too, it’s important to clarify that we are talking about both pre-sale display and post-sale display. The following, therefore, is a guide to both how and why correct display of food at all stages of a takeaway-customer interaction can help to increase the takeaway’s sales.
Pre-Sale Food Display
It should almost go without saying that the way in which food is displayed within a takeaway is critical when it comes to enticing customers into the restaurant or encouraging them to purchase more than they may have first intended.
For that reason, then, it is crucial that food is displayed clearly and in an eye-catching manner. That’s why the best sorts of display for both hot and for cold food are those which are largely comprised of glass and allow prospective customers a good view of the food on offer. That is far from the end of the story, however.
As well as catching the eye, after all, a display of food in a takeaway outlet must also show off the food at its most appealing and attractive. What that means is that the display must maintain the correct kind of temperature and humidity for the specific kind of food it is to display. Some takeaway foods, after all, need to appear moist and succulent whilst others want to look crispy. This maintenance of the proper environment, too, is also obviously critical for the taste and the safety of the food.
Finally, it is also worth noting the negative impact on sales which improperly sized food displays can have on any takeaway. A display that is too small, after all, limits the amount of volume that a restaurant can sell and an overly large display can make customers feel like the takeaway is forever running out of food.
Post-Sale Food Display
How food is displayed in a takeaway before a customer places their order and gets served isn’t the end of the story. How their meal is packaged and displayed when they receive it is of vital importance, too, when it comes to attracting and retaining customers and ultimately increasing sales.
Well-branded packaging, firstly, is the best kind of free advertising that any takeaway can possibly have. Wherever someone may see such packaging, after all, it has the potential to persuade them to patronise the takeaway in question.
What’s more, how a customer’s food is packaged, displayed and presented to them is also critically important in determining if they will return to the takeaway in future. To that end, food should be displayed both attractively and in a manner that will keep it at its best and at its hottest for the longest time possible. Few customers, after all, are likely to return to a takeaway which subjected them to a cold or an otherwise spoiled meal.