The joy that customers feel after eating a well-cooked meal is unparalleled. A Meal prep business provides tasty food packed in small containers to users at an affordable rate.
The advantages of developing a Meal prep business are it saves time from cooking for users, a variety of dishes from different cuisines is available 24×7, and the customers also need not spend much effort in grocery shopping.
The major factors to take into account before starting a Meal prep business are
Focus on a specific category
- Various meals can be offered to your users as per the time of the day and their tastes.
- It includes types like prepared meals, pre-made or fresh meals, and uncooked meals containing just the essential ingredients.
- Conduct a market survey to know the tastes of the target audience.
- This will ensure that you prepare the right food for the customers as per the strength of your niche.
Develop a comprehensive business plan
- Decide on the operational scope of your Meal prep business, the sources of revenue, the overall cost structure, and fundraising plans from prospective investors.
- This helps in smarter decision making once the business is running in full flow.
- Approach the relevant authorities to get the necessary licenses and permits for the Meal prep business to make it 100% legally compliant.
- Different licenses for food processing, catering, a No Objection license from the Fire department, Clearance from the Pollution board, Infrastructure license, Taxation laws, and Labour laws must be followed.
Offer a customized subscription plan
- Subscription plans can be offered to users based on their personal meal preferences by knowing their eating habits.
- It can be provided either monthly, quarterly, or yearly at a fixed rate along with extra charges imposed for home delivery of food.
- First-time customers can be given either a discount on the food or free delivery.
Finalize a marketing and promotional strategy
- Meals can be sold by setting up an offline delivery fulfillment hub or by launching an online delivery app or an e-commerce platform where users can make orders.
- Utilize a mix of traditional marketing tools (like organizing roadshows, events, and publishing print ads in newspapers and magazines), and digital marketing (social media, paid ads, search engine optimization (SEO), and online forums).
- The marketing campaigns have to be implemented aggressively across multiple communication channels to share the benefits and the value offered by the meals to the customers.
Create the top-notch meal delivery application
- Add all the necessary features and functionalities to your Meal prep app.
- Test the functioning of the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) before going for a full-fledged launch.
- A viable alternative to development from scratch would be to acquire a readymade clone version of a Meal prep app created by experienced developers.
- The food delivery clone app is completely customized and is extensively pre-tested to ensure that it is fully bug-free and ready to be deployed in day-to-day business operations.
Concentrate on tackling the different challenges
- There will be lots of challenges to face while operating the Meal prep business.
- Real-time logistics management would be a tough task especially when the scale of operations keep increasing and there is a need to have a larger food delivery fleet.
- Customers will also prefer healthy diets for maintaining a more fit lifestyle. Hence, constant changes in the menu would be required.
- Obtaining funds from banks and investors is also necessary.
- Managing the employees also requires more effort and they must be given adequate compensation to continue working in the Meal prep business.
The step by step process to develop a Meal prep business is
- Understanding the business goals of the firm.
- Preparing the development plan including all the technical specifications of the Food delivery app.
- Hiring different members for the project like UI/UX designers, mobile app developers, marketing specialists, finance managers, project managers, QA testers, and technical support staff.
- Rigorously testing the Meal preparation app to remove all technical bugs and vulnerabilities.
- Run the final version of the solution before launching the food delivery app in the market.
What is the total cost of initiating a Meal prep business?
- The budget depends on factors like the operational scope, the complexity of features required in the Meal prep app, the skill-levels of the developer team, the hourly rate charged by the developers, and the entire development duration.
- The major expenses would be on setting up a kitchen, a food delivery app, and marketing.
- The different phases involved in the development of the Meal prep app would be studying the business requirements, UI/UX designing, adding the required features, extensively testing the solution, launching the food delivery app in the market, and marketing it.
Final Thoughts
As seen above, the eating habits of customers have drastically changed now. Starting a meal delivery business is immensely beneficial in the long run. The global market for readymade meals will be valued at a whopping $244.29 billion in 2027, with an annual growth rate of 5.5%. Keeping in mind the competitive landscape, market trends, and profitable growth opportunities, it is an ideal time to commence Food delivery app development to earn huge revenue quickly.