How to manage a tiffin service day to day
Running a tiffin service is the same day repeated: count, cook, pack, deliver, collect. The kitchens that cope best have a fixed routine and a few clear policies. Here's both.
· 3 min read
The daily routine
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Evening (cut-off) | Orders for tomorrow close. No more skips, pauses or changes. |
| Evening | Final count per dish; check groceries; soak and prep. |
| Morning | Cook to the count. Check allergies and notes on the packing list. |
| Late morning | Pack in route order, label every box. |
| Midday | Driver leaves with stops in order; photo at each door. |
| Afternoon | Check failed deliveries; reply to messages; match payments. |
The five policies to write down
Most fights with customers are about something nobody decided in advance. Write these on your ordering page and send them with every new plan:
- Skip and pause cut-off. "Skips and pauses must be made by 8pm the day before."
- What happens to skipped meals. Do they move to the end of the plan, become credit, or are they lost after the cut-off?
- Payment timing. "Plans are paid before the first delivery. Unpaid renewals are paused."
- Missed deliveries. If nobody's home, where is the box left, and is it refunded?
- Changes to the menu. You may swap a dish when an ingredient is unavailable.
Where it usually goes wrong
- Late skips. A message at 11pm after you've counted. The fix is a hard cut-off and a place to skip that isn't your WhatsApp.
- Notes that don't reach the packer. "No onion" from three weeks ago. Notes have to live on the customer, and print on the label.
- Payments you can't match. E-transfers with no name. Ask customers to put their phone number in the message, or use automatic matching.
- Only you know everything. When you're sick, the kitchen stops. Put the count, the notes and the route somewhere a helper can read.
Tools for each stage
Up to about 25 customers, the free tiffin register in Excel or Google Sheets is enough. Past that, the count, labels and payments start taking hours. That's what Tiffinware does: a cook sheet that closes at your cut-off, skips and pauses customers do themselves, one page per customer, and e-transfers matched for you.
The weekly routine
| Day | What |
|---|---|
| Saturday | Plan next week's menu; post it |
| Sunday | Bulk shopping; renewals reminder to customers whose plans end this week |
| Monday | Check the week's new customers, addresses and allergies |
| Wednesday | Second vegetable shop; check who hasn't paid |
| Friday | Review skips and complaints; plan changes for next week |
Hiring your first helper
Most kitchens hire help in this order: a driver first (delivery takes the owner out of the kitchen for hours), then a packer for the morning rush, then a cook. Write down the parts of your day a helper can follow without asking you: the packing list, the portions, where boxes go in the car. Anything that only exists in your head is something you can't hand over.
Handling complaints
- Reply the same day, even if it's only "Sorry, I'm looking into it."
- Check the facts: the delivery photo, the note on their record, the label.
- Fix it once, generously: a free meal or credit costs less than losing a customer.
- Change the routine so it doesn't happen again, and tell them you did.
Food safety habits
- Cool cooked food quickly and keep it cold until it's packed, or hot until it leaves.
- Keep allergen dishes (nuts, sesame, mustard) separate, with their own spoons.
- Label every box with the date it was made.
- Keep your food handler certificate current, and get the same course for helpers.
Questions
What's a good cut-off time for skips?
The evening before, early enough that you can still change your grocery list and prep: 8pm or 9pm works for most lunch services. After the cut-off, the meal is charged.
How do I handle customers who don't pay on time?
Collect before the plan starts, not after. Send one reminder before renewal, and pause delivery if a renewal isn't paid. A clear written policy makes this easy to enforce kindly.