Rise of Covid-19 and Uncertainty
As covid-19 stroke, all of the sudden and caused chaos around the globe. The pandemic caused a lot of mess and desperately caused people to shut down their businesses and sit at home. It caused economic crises everywhere. Completely locked down at many countries brought a major challenge for the government to keep on continue the food and services and provide them with it during such a hard time.
At many areas, hunger strike and a shortage could be seen. Talking about Pakistan itself, as underdeveloped people are living so it was a task for government and citizen to come forward and help them out.
How Food Business Grow in Pandemic:
This is an unprecedented time and seemed like the whole world is brought to its knees due to the rapid destruction of the spread of Covid-19. As one year is going to be complete now but improvement cannot be seen anywhere. Though they say that the vaccine is being made and introduced in countries, but we are still waiting for it.
Having a look at how business kept them alive in this uncertainty. Especially talking about the food business. They were like a lucky number who tried to save themselves from disaster. At the start of the pandemic, it caused a lot of hustle and bustle everywhere. All the businesses, education sectors were shut down for a long while. To survive, food businesses started online ordering. Indoor dining was closed completely. It took time for the government to allow this because only the necessary things were allowed.
Food business were at the plus point from the start because they did not suffer a huge lose as compared to other sectors which were completely shut down and had to lay off employees. Because food related business was something never going to stop. And restaurants took complete advantage of it. Following were the ways through which food businesses made their go in the pandemic:
Car Dining Outside the Restaurant
The first restaurant to come up with this idea was Sweet Tooth. The CEO was already giving his services at such an hour of need. He also introduced this idea of dining inside the car instead of having contact with people. This helped people to enjoy a time of pleasure while having food hot served right inside their car. Eventually, he enabled restaurants to run their business. Proper medical check of employees was maintained, and hygiene was strictly monitored.
Takeaways
As the government allowed food ordering, it was a blessing in disguise for the restaurants to start their business again. Food delivery was at the top and business such as Cheetay, Foodpandaetc were the game player in this. The marketing deals and promotion of restaurants helped them to remain stable at such time too.
Home-Based Businesses; A Blessing in Disguise
The pandemic affected people financially and mentally. Many people lost their job and were jobless. People with only one breadwinnerdid not have any other way to earn money. So, people started home food businesses. They started to sell bakery items, home-cooked food, decoration pieces, jeweler etc. Food forums such as ESR, Eat & Meet helped people to reach the audience and sell their business. People also thought out of the box and brought creativity in their business. As everyone started doing the same thing, competition was growing, and it became hard to sell. So, people who made themselves and their work unique got the bench mark in pandemic. And they made their business to run at such hard time.
Website for Groceries
People also started to provide services like providing with grocery, necessary items and medicines etc. at your doorsteps. Those people who faced complete locked down at their area took advantage of these services. Websites take orders and provide all the items at doorstep following the SOPs.
Food Vlogs and YouTube Channel
Young energetic and creative people started their own food channels on YouTube. Not necessarily food Vlogs but generally focused on it. They took the right advantage of staying at home and find a new thing to keep them busy and try to make money out of it. This increased the trend of YouTube in Pakistan and helped to make our economy better and a bit stable. Between such time there used to see new to banning of YouTube in Pakistan but it did not happen. And it was a blessing for everyone.
Discounts on Delivery and Takeaway
To make it feasible for the people to order food at home, restaurants started giving discounts on delivery and takeaway. It helped in creating a win-win situation for everyone. To keep the business to work and making economical for the people to order food. Restaurants also did CSR activities while giving discounts. Many restaurants helped poor people to get one time food for their families for free of cost.
Still, A long Way to Go before Pandemic Ends
All these ways helped businesses to keep them from falling. It’s not right to say that food businesses didn’t face any challenge. They were equally attacked by Covid-19 as they had to keep a strict check on the health of their employees and delivery boys. Providing proper packaging of food and giving alcohol, sanitizers to people before receiving. One mistake could make their business stop from running.
Still, the pandemic is here we can witness the second wave too which is even scarier. The rising cases and danger are creating pressure on government and authorities to come up with a better strategy. To keep the business in work and also decreasing the number of cases. Each oneis trying to make the situation better. As the vaccine is introduced and we hope that it would end this pandemic from the Earth soon. But it will take time so before that, all the sectors should combine and try to keep a flow. Everyone needs to play their part well because we could make the situation worse than before.
