This article will provide a guide to reducing your prep time.
Prep Time is the term for how long it takes restaurants to get an order ready for pickup by a rider.
Generally you have have 12 minutes to make a ticket, but the delivery platforms will automatically adjust this based on how fast you prep from historical orders.
It’s super important that you understand when to start making an order once you have received it. And what you can do to improve how you organise your kitchen to reduce your prep time to delivery a great customer experience.
Let’s look at a video from Deliveroo that will help you understand how prep times impact your restaurant’s success.
Click to begin the video 👇🏻
Great advice from Royal Stacks there! Let’s go over the key learnings from that video 👇🏻
When is the best time to start making an order?
When the rider arrives at the restaurant?
At the same time it says as the target pickup time?
The target pickup time minus the time it takes to prep the menu items.
It’s the target pickup time minus the time it takes to prep the menu items - this is because, for example, if you have an order with a burger and fries that takes you 5 minutes to cook and package and you start making this 5 minutes before the target pickup time, the rider will be able to take the order and deliver the food hot, fresh and on time, meaning a great delivery experience.
What are the benefits of having a lower prep time?
Drivers rejecting orders?
Increased ratings and sales?
Repeatedly late orders?
Of course, it’s increased ratings and sales, because a customer has a set of expectations when they make an order, and if their food arrives hot, fresh and on time, that means they had a great experience, rate you highly and will order from your restaurant again.
The delivery platforms also use prep time to calculate the estimated order duration (EOD) they show to customers on their restaurant lists. EOD can impact your position on the list, so restaurants with a shorter EOD will appear higher in the restaurant list.
So what can we do to reduce prep time and EOD? See some tips below 👇🏻
Prepare every order for the time on the ticket, and have the food packaged ready for the rider.
Be consistent. The platform algorithm learns your average prep time from every order you make. The more consistent you are, the more accurate the prep time is.
Prepare your packaging before service (e.g. add stickers to boxes and pots ahead of time). This can save you valuable minutes, and even seconds in a busy kitchen adds up!
Have clear signage. Clearly mark the area where riders should pick up orders.
Choose a staff member to handle delivery. If you haven’t got a hot holding unit we recommend assigning one member off staff to just focus on packaging + delivery orders.
Label every order. Always staple a ticket with an order number to outside of the bag, so riders can quickly see their order, and you can quickly identify that this order belongs to the right rider.
Now that we know when, let’s talk about how you can organise your kitchen better to reduce your prep time.
Efficiently organising your kitchen space means that when an order comes through, everything you need to make that order is as accessible as possible. You do not want to be running to different areas of the kitchen for an order, as this will increase you prep time and slow down your service.
Check out this video below around how to best set up your section for service! 👇🏻
Dreamy setup, right?
From what you’ve learned here, have a think about how your own kitchen is setup, and what improvements could you make in your restaurant to reduce prep time?
Remember, the less movement to create an order the better!