The Meal Kit Shift and the Homegrown Process Behind It

Necessity is the mother of all inventions. And the Malagos Meal Kits and all other innovations from resorts and restaurants are proof of how crisis generates new ideas and resourcefulness.

The adversity brought by the COVID-19 pandemic especially to the hospitality and tourism industry has been indeed life-changing. Some would even argue that the term “life-changing” is an understatement and there are no right words to describe the situation that we are in right now.

The Covid-19 pandemic is turning out to be an epochal event for hospitality, travel and tourism industries. Most disruptions affected the consumer side of the business, but the current crisis is already leaving a deep impact on the operational side of the industry, too. But like the previous pandemics and international crisis, the Covid-19 crisis will pass and the hospitality industry will continue serving its patrons, just like it has been doing for centuries. We first-handedly saw and experienced a sea of changes in our resort and restaurant operations.

The crisis led us to some major structural and operational changes for Malagos Garden Resort, from the implementation of new health standards to adaptation to new customer expectations. Here are some of the things that we started adapting and doing which lead us to serving DIY meal kits and healthy easy-to-eat meals now:

Kitchen

Our employees went through training and meetings about the new sanitary measures in the kitchen. When we started brewing these new meal kits our staff had to wear a protective mask and gear. We reviewed the goods reception protocol (floor marking) and prohibited anyone from outside to enter into the kitchen (supplier/delivery person, etc.) We also practiced removing packaging before storage or disinfecting what cannot be unpacked. We made sure to wash all products coming into the kitchen (for fresh food, we didn’t wash them with a cleaning product, but leave them 24h in the fridge before their use). Storage was the most important step, we made sure that all goods are received in cleaned containers (plastic or stainless steel) before storage.

Management and adaptation of the new business model

As a new means of staying in business, the resort initially offered fresh produce, frozen goods, baked goodies, and Malagos signature products. While we were selling produce, our team was already looking into offering takeaway meals to compensate for the closure of our restaurants. 

Once we figured out the process of packaging for the takeaway and delivery dishes, we started rolling them out and so far we’re getting good reviews on our Malagos Garden Resort Meal Kits.

Sanitary / Cleaning

Of course we had to establish and display a restaurant, kitchen, and stock house cleaning/disinfection plan that is visible to customers to reassure them that they’re getting nothing but carefully prepared and nutritious gourmet meals that they can indulge into.

Most importantly, we continued engaging and communicating with our customers online and encouraged them to continue supporting local businesses like the Malagos Homegrown Produce. There are plenty of Davao meal kits and delivery services that are now open and available so the city’s residents don’t really have to worry about how to get what they need.