An organiser is booking food for a hundred and twenty people. She knows of two people who cannot eat gluten, one with a serious nut allergy and about fifteen who do not eat meat.
She needs to know whether everybody can eat. Every trader website she reads says something warm about great food for every occasion.
The checklist
Publish these and organisers book you rather than guessing.
1. The full menu, published
With every item and what is in it. Organisers cannot propose a trader whose menu they have not seen.
2. The vegetarian and vegan options
Named dishes rather than a claim that options are available. Organisers count heads and need to know there is something real.
3. The gluten free position
What is available, and honestly whether a shared fryer or preparation area means it cannot be guaranteed. The distinction matters enormously.
4. The allergen information per dish
Documented, current and available before the event. It is the information organisers need and the thing most traders have not written down.
5. What the kitchen cannot guarantee
Because a small mobile unit has real constraints. Saying so plainly is responsible and it is what a serious organiser is looking for, which is the discipline in allergen and menu questions at the serving hatch.
6. How allergen questions are answered on the day
That staff work from documented information, that they will check rather than guess and what happens when the answer is uncertain.
7. Whether the menu can be adapted
Substitutions, a dish added for a group or a separate preparation arrangement, and what it costs. Organisers assume no and frequently would pay.
8. Whether requirements must be notified in advance
By when, and what can be accommodated on the day. It is a fair requirement and it should be stated at booking.
9. The children's options
Portion sizes, simpler dishes and pricing. Family events live or die on this.
10. Religious and cultural requirements
What you can and cannot provide, stated honestly rather than implied. Organisers of diverse events need a straight answer.
11. How you handle a serious allergy
Never with a reassurance. With documented information, an honest statement of the risk and a person to speak to, which is the boundary in how to handle sensitive questions in your chatbot.
12. What happens if you sell out
Of an option that a group depends on. Reserving portions for notified requirements is a small thing that matters enormously.
13. Capture requirements at booking
Numbers, notified requirements and anything serious, which is the same capture as dietary requirement questions caterers must capture.
13b. Explain how the menu is displayed on the day
Guests standing at a hatch in a queue need to see what is in each dish without holding everybody up. Describing how the menu and allergen information appear at the unit, and that staff can be asked, tells an organiser that the arrangement works in practice rather than only in an email.
13c. Say what happens with a last minute requirement
Somebody at an event will always announce a requirement nobody notified, and the organiser will look to the trader. Publishing what can be adapted on the spot, and what genuinely cannot, means the organiser can answer that guest confidently rather than promising something you cannot deliver.
14. Answer menu questions at any hour
Because organisers compare traders in the evening, as in menu and dietary questions mobile traders get asked.
Getting started
Publish the full menu with documented allergen information and what cannot be guaranteed, then capture requirements at booking and answer at any hour. SpideyChat for food businesses answers from your published pages. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about routing on the features page.