Safety is always our priority
Best practices for our restaurant partners to support you during this time.
Safety recommendations
Given the concerns about coronavirus (COVID-19), we're working closely with numerous public health authorities worldwide to help provide guidance on safety. We have prepared the below recommendations to help guide you through safe practices for your establishment.
Keep your staff healthy
Follow safety procedures during food preparation
Follow practices for food packaging
Keep food safe during transport if you are using your own delivery staff
Minimise exposure during delivery pick-up
Be aware of ‘Leave at door’ delivery methods
Keep your staff healthy
To minimise the risk of spreading and catching the virus, we recommend not only briefing your staff on the practices reinforced by health organisations, but also placing health and safety instructions all around your establishment to act as a reminder. You can find restaurant signage created by Uber Eats, including health and safety advice, available to download in PDF format below.
You are of course free to create your own signage, which could include reminders to:
- Wash your hands regularly with soap and water for at least 20 seconds;
- Use hand sanitiser gel if soap and water are not available;
- Cover your mouth or nose with a tissue (not your hands) when you cough or sneeze;
- Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.
If any staff members report a mild illness, respiratory symptoms or have a temperature (38 C or above), they should be encouraged to stay at home. Restaurants are advised to contact their local health authority in the event of any suspected coronavirus cases amongst their staff.
Please visit your local health authority website for additional information.
Follow safety procedures during food preparation
Based on guidance from public health authorities around the world, we advise Uber Eats restaurant partners to follow best practices on food safety and packaging. This includes ensuring regular and thorough sanitisation of high-touch surfaces (door knobs, handles, taps, sinks), and food handling and food preparation environments, as well as frequent hand washing. Please also check continually with your local health authority as they may have updated guidance about cleaning and sanitising.
Follow practices for food packaging
We advise you to ensure all food is properly sealed in tamper-evident packaging. This can mean using stickers or staples to seal bags, or even double bags (sealing the food order inside one bag and repeating the process by sealing it in an additional bag) for an extra layer of protection against contamination during delivery hand-off.
We recommend following these practices even if your usual delivery packaging already has closures (lids, caps, covers, etc.). In the case of a pizza box, for example, you could add additional stickers to seal the box from the outside, or even consider an additional layer of wrapping around the entire box. For drinks, utensils, napkins and condiments, please ensure that these items are packed and sealed alongside the food. All of these simple practices can help prevent contamination during delivery.
Keep food safe during transport if you are using your own delivery staff
We encourage restaurant partners using their own delivery staff to advise staff members to disinfect their equipment regularly in order to curb the spread of COVID-19. It is highly recommended that you encourage your delivery staff to clean and disinfect their vehicles and insulated bags before going out to make deliveries, paying special attention to high-touch surfaces and surfaces that may come into contact with food packaging frequently.
Minimise exposure during delivery pick-up
It is highly recommended that restaurants offering delivery or pick-up designate a waiting area for couriers and customers that is separate from food preparation areas, and where couriers and customers can practise effective social distancing.
Setting up the delivery area
For restaurants only offering delivery and takeaway orders, we recommend setting up your pick-up area close to the entrance door. You can place spare tables just inside – or even better, just outside – the entrance door, creating both a barrier and a temporary counter for couriers and customers to pick up orders quickly without entering the restaurant. If that is not an option for you, we suggest setting up a delivery counter inside the restaurant as far away as possible from the food preparation area.
To help protect and inform couriers and customers, you can place written instructions by the counter about maintaining a safe distance from one another. You can download our "Maintain physical distance" signage in PDF format to print and place in your restaurant in the link below. We also recommend marking out a queue on the floor either inside or outside your store to demonstrate social distancing guidelines. You can use any type of adhesive tape or stickers, and place each queue position 2 metres or 6 feet apart, or as advised by your local health authority.
Sanitising hands during hand-off
We recommend setting up a hand-sanitising station at the pick-up counter so staff (and couriers) can sanitise their hands when handing off food packages. Place hand sanitiser on the counter and instruct staff to use it after each hand-off to prevent contamination. To use it, they should cover the whole surface of their hands and rub them together as if using soap and water until they are dry.
If you do not have hand sanitisers due to product shortages, you can find instructions from the World Health Organization here on how to produce hygienic handrub. Your local health authorities may be able to provide similar instructions.
When possible, we also recommend making this sanitising solution available for couriers at your delivery counter. In this way, you can help protect couriers and help prevent contamination throughout the delivery journey.
Adding receipts to label your orders
Label each order with the printed receipt so it’s easier for couriers to identify each order without handling the bag(s) directly. Another option is to mark the order number clearly with a pen on the outside of the food package. If a single order consists of multiple bags, make sure each bag has the order number displayed clearly, and number the bags (e.g. 1/3, 2/3, 3/3).
Changing courier pick-up instructions to facilitate social distancing
You can change the delivery pick-up instructions directly via Restaurant Dashboard in your tablet:
Click on Menu > Settings > Business information > and update the ‘Pick-up instructions’ text. For example, you may want to change the text to instruct couriers to wait in the demarcated queue positions outside the store until their order number is called.
Be aware of ‘Leave at door’ delivery methods
In the UK, contactless delivery is the only available option for Uber Eats users, unless their order contains alcohol. Couriers using Uber Eats will receive explicit directions from their customers on how to deliver orders to designated safe spaces (the customer’s doorstep, for example). In the UK, contactless delivery is the only available option for Uber Eats users, unless their order contains alcohol.
If you are using your own delivery staff, please be aware that customers have the ability to communicate this information in our app, so please look carefully at orders and POS tickets for special instructions and share these with your delivery staff. When in doubt, delivery staff should contact their customers for explicit directions to avoid unnecessary contact.
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