The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically affected every business, regardless of the industry. It caused many food businesses to shut down permanently because everyone avoided restaurants and cafes for health reasons. Now that the world is coming toward recovery, the way food businesses operate has evolved.
The pandemic hasn't affected food businesses negatively only. It had some positive effects as well. Due to dine-in restrictions, deliveries and takeaways were on the rise. Even though the limits have been removed, the number of deliveries and takeaways didn't decline. Businesses then shifted from massive places to smaller restaurants to cut their cost.
If you've developed a love for cooking and food staying indoors, here are the top ten food business ideas you can start post-pandemic.
1. Cloud Kitchen
Cloud kitchen is the best food business to start with low capital. It is a professional kitchen that prepares food only for delivery and takeaway purposes.
A cloud kitchen is a low-risk and high-profit business. How? You're saved from the hassles of maintaining a vast restaurant and paying many employees. Moreover, you won't have to pay as high utility bills as you would running a restaurant with a dine-in place. Since your expenses are cut down, you can sell your products at affordable rates and still make a profit. The combination of good food and reasonable prices is a customer-attracting magnet.
Cloud kitchen business enables you to be optimized for deliveries and reach broader audiences. You can advertise your business through delivery apps such as UberEats, Postmates, and GrubHub and on social media platforms.
2. Food Blog
If you're a big food lover, this is one of the best online food business ideas. Imagine earning money for writing about what you love. Blogs earn through Google Adsense, offering subscriptions, affiliate marketing, etc.
Here are some ideas for a food blog.
- If you love eating out, you can visit restaurants and write a review about them.
- If you prefer cooking, you can share your recipes on your blog.
- You can write about healthy recipes and diets if you're into health and fitness.
- You can share cooking or baking hacks.
- Replicate trending or celebrities' recipes and write about the results.
- You can give unique food business ideas and guide people to start them.
You can also sell your food items through your blog. Anyone can build a blog. But knowing how to make it successful is what most people can't do. If you've decided to go for a food blog, here are some steps you need to follow to make it work.
a. Decide a Niche
Deciding on a niche is crucial because it helps to determine your target audience. And once you know who your target is and what they like, it will be easy for you to create content for them. When picking a niche, consider the trending topics and your interest.
b. Get a Website for Your Blog
Image taken from Strikingly’s user’s website
The easiest way to get a website is to build one yourself using a website builder. We've saved you from all the research and have already found one of the best website builders. Let us introduce you to Strikingly. It is renowned for its ease of use and robust features that will make your food blog stand out.
You can build your food blog using Strikingly's customizable templates. They offer more than 200 options. Add the blog section to your site, personalize it in the website editor, and start posting.
Strikingly offers various blog features to make blogging convenient for you. You can enable comments to engage with your audience, pin and schedule your blog posts, and offer email subscriptions. Strikingly contributes to creating a great user experience for your blog readers by allowing you to activate Accelerated Mobile Pages for your blog and enable RSS feed.
c. Think of Content Ideas
Now that you've finalized a niche, it's time to prepare the content. For content ideas, go through blogs similar to what you're trying to build. Analyze their content and think about what you can do to make it unique and reflect your blog's identity.
Prepare content for at least two to three blog posts before publishing. We wouldn't prefer hiring any writers in the beginning. You can use tools like Grammarly and Hemingway to help with your writing.
d. Promote Your Blog
These strategies can help you gain blog readers rapidly.
- Incorporate relevant keywords in your content. It helps you gain a higher SEO ranking.
- Do giveaways when you hit milestones.
- Partner with other bloggers and influencers.
- Share your blog on social media.
It takes time for a blog to start earning, so be patient and keep your efforts consistent.
3. Cooking Lessons
Teaching can be an extremely fulfilling experience. Besides earning money from your cooking classes, the respect, appreciation, and your student's success will show you that tutoring is worth everything you put in.
You can offer physical cooking classes at your home if opting for a budget-friendly approach or online cooking lessons. If you have a busy schedule, you can arrange one-day cooking lessons or record your videos to upload on platforms like YouTube so that your small food business can suit your schedule.
Remember the food blog? You can combine these two food business ideas to gain additional benefits. You can tell your readers about your cooking classes through your blog and get students quickly.
4. Home-based Cloud Kitchen
A home-based cloud kitchen is one of the most cost-effective food business ideas. For a professional cloud kitchen, you would have to pay for everything a huge restaurant owner pays, but less. In a home-based cloud kitchen, many expanses are eradicated. For instance, you won't have to pay for employees, additional rent and bills, and maintenance charges will be reduced even more.
A home-based cloud kitchen requires a small startup cost for ingredients, kitchen tools, and machinery (if any are needed). You can educate people about your business through social media. You can use social media platforms or build your online food store for selling.
You can use Strikingly to build your online store. Its online store features let you showcase and sell more than 500 products, accept payment through different methods, and create custom checkout forms to ask customers for additional information at the checkout.
Follow these steps to build your online food shop using Strikingly.
a. Sign up, and go to Dashboard.
b. Click on the "Create new site" button.
Image taken from Strikingly
c. Select the template you like.
d. When in the website editor, click "Add new section" from the menu.
Image taken from Strikingly
e. Go to "e-commerce" and select the online store.
f. Tap "Add products," then click "Add new products."
Image taken from Strikingly
g. Fill in the required information about your product, and save.
You can also check your online store orders from the Online Store Order dashboard or manage them from the Strikingly mobile app. It is available for Android and IOS users.
5. Foods That Are Not Commonly Available
Selling uncommon cuisines can be among the most profitable food business ideas. For instance, you live in the US, and it's hard to find authentic Peruvian and Filipino foods. You can open a restaurant selling uncommon cuisines; if it's good enough, people from farther areas will also visit your restaurant. Uncommon things quickly go viral. By selling unique cuisine, your restaurant stands a better chance of becoming a trend.
Food business ideas are not limited to restaurants and freshly prepared food. You can also import and sell pre-packaged snacks from other countries that are not readily available in your region.
6. Bubble Tea
The demand for bubble tea projects its market value to hit 4.5 Billion USD by 2026. Selling bubble tea at this time can be one of the most fruitful food business ideas. You can build a bubble tea brand by offering unique variations. For instance, you can offer your consumers different types, flavors, and components.
Through Strikingly’s custom checkout forms, you can ask your customers for the type, flavor, and components they want in their bubble tea.
7. Baby Food
People can sometimes be careless about what they eat but not what their babies eat. New parents find it hard to trust food brands because of preservatives and other added chemicals. It would help if you introduced your brand so that it’s easy for parents to trust you.
Experiment with different recipes, including all-natural ingredients. It can be as profitable as other food business ideas if you earn parents' trust.
8. Food Truck
A food truck may be best for you if you prefer to keep your business moving to introduce it to new audiences. Food trucks are one of the food business ideas that don't require a considerable investment. Since there is a low cost involved, you can offer your food for lower prices than the traditional restaurants and attract more consumers.
9. Meal Kits
Image taken from Strikingly’s user’s website
A meal kit business is a subscription-based food business model where the company sends pre-portioned meals to its subscribers. You can choose one cuisine for your meal delivery business or change it every week or month. Even though their popularity has increased, there's still room for new companies. If you come up with unique ideas, your business stands a better chance of succeeding.
10. Food Delivery Service
Another way to take advantage of a rise in food delivery demand is by offering food delivery services. You can partner with other food businesses, offer them deals profitable for you both, and launch an app or website. Building an app can be expensive, but that's your only investment with the vehicles. Moreover, it's less costly than opening a restaurant. To cut or minimize the cost of a website, you can try Strikingly.
Even though the world is coming toward recovery from the pandemic, people's concern about hygiene hasn't decreased. Ensure you take all the safety measures while preparing the food, and let people know that you value cleanliness and their health.
