As we all know by now, getting used to the new normal of food safety during a pandemic has not been the easiest thing to do. I think it’s safe to say as people we kind of took food services for granted. As we witnessed the country fold and state after state followed with shutting down, we were really witnessing a dark time for the food industry. Unfortunately, for a lot of foodservice and restaurant owners, the government shutdowns including rules for no public gatherings for the most part and no dining-in at establishments, have caused them to close down their businesses for good. As a fellow member of the foodservice industry, this has been a tough thing for us to watch.
However, some business owners adapted to the new normal. We started seeing nationwide spikes in the alternative ways the food industry was beginning to offer their services. It seemed like every restaurant was either offering call-in or take out orders, curbside pickup, contactless delivery, or delivery through a third party like DoorDash or GrubHub. Both of which also offer contactless delivery on their own. At Frios, we knew we were in luck considering we have a pre-packaged product that has endured the least amount of touches throughout the production process as possible. Our ice pops are produced at our manufacturing facility in Mobile, AL, frozen, wrapped, boxed, and shipped out to our 40+ franchise locations across the country.
We knew if we could correctly capitalize on this opportunity of offering a pre-packaged product in a contactless world, we could make a difference. After studying the new national trends of offering contactless delivery and curbside pickup, we began developing our own strategies and digital content internally to provide to our franchisees. We even have focused our future on mobility! We worked as quickly as possible to not lose any momentum and communicated the new processes to our franchisees. They then readjusted their strategies based on our recommendations and began implementing them into their own local communities.
Today, all of our locations proudly offer either contactless delivery or curbside pickup to some degree, some of which even come right to your doorstep! You can also find some of our franchise locations on food delivery services like DoorDash and GrubHub too. Find the closest Frios location near you to see what special accommodations are available in your area. Many of our franchises have even been partnering with local schools to get pops to the teachers, faculty, and students! It has been great to alleviate some of the back to school blues, especially when the majority of it is virtual.
There could not be a better time than now to share the happiness of Frios with as many people as possible. The world could use a smile and it just so happens that smiles are included with every single Frios sold.