COVID-19: Is it safe to order food from DishPal?

As the governments’ have taken action to quarantine their people and people as well as putting themselves under self-quarantine, the role of service providers has become more evident. Companies offering home delivery options of goods such as DishPal have the opportunity provided by the coronavirus crisis to fill the gaps in people’s needs and delivery. It’s safe to order food at home. But as quarantine requires people to be isolated fully and they need the services at home, what about the service partners at these companies who have not been able to isolate themselves from the world rather they are engaging actively with the rest of the population be it affected or the suspects of the disease.

DishPal has said in its press note that it is conducting training for its delivery partners on the best practices that include personal hygiene, proper method, and frequency of sanitizing themselves. The training also includes making the delivery partners more aware of the approach one should take if they find any symptoms of Covid-19.

DishPal has asked their delivery partners to self-quarantine or reach out to a doctor immediately in case they observe any clinical symptoms of Covid-19 in them. DishPal food startup is providing free medical check-ups for their delivery partners, in a move that may sound rewarding them for their service in these testing times. The companies are also sending regular updates of advisories released by the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.
At DishPal, we are doing everything we can to support our community – our customers, delivery partners, restaurant partners, and the daily wage workers who have been impacted the most in these times.
We have received overwhelming support towards all the initiatives we have taken and we would like to thank everyone from the bottom of our heart for the courage and resilience they have shown to help out those in need. Your love and support keep us going DishPal.

1. Contactless Delivery – amidst the current lockdown situation in Canada, ensuring delivery of safe, hygienic food to our customers is paramount for us. To ensure this, we have launched a contactless delivery. Customers can opt to allow the delivery partner to leave the package outside their home, ensuring no human-to-human interaction and hence lowering the risk of any transmission.
2. Face masks – we believe that people should wear masks for the sake of others, if not for themselves. In that spirit, we have distributed and continue to distribute face masks to our delivery partners to keep them, as well as our customers, safe from the spread of an unlikely infection. We are also continuously educating our delivery partners on hygiene practices (not to touch face, nose, sneeze in the elbow, etc.) to ensure their own as well as the ecosystem’s safety.
3. Disabling COD – for safety reasons, to avoid contact between our users and delivery partners, we’ve temporarily disabled the CoD (cash-on-delivery) option on our app.

Restaurant practices are being monitored keeping Safe Delivery as High Priority:-

Strict hygiene standards at restaurants – we are making a big push to ensure hygiene standards are being followed by restaurants and passing on that information to users so that they can make an informed decision and are assured of the safety and hygiene standards of the food.
Restaurants can issue a self-declaration on whether they are complying with best practices advised by WHO at their premises, to take precautions against the spread of Coronavirus.
Restaurants have set up hand washing & sanitization stations and are ensuring that restaurant staff, as well as delivery partners, are using them regularly.
Restaurants are being encouraged to adopt the practice of sanitizing their kitchen slabs and utensils at periodic intervals. Restaurants are also checking the body temperature of restaurant staff as well as our delivery partners to ensure that food is not delivered by someone with a higher than normal body temperature.
Delivery partners are being asked to share a daily self-declaration on their hygiene and health – normal body temperature sanitized masks and bags. We are also enforcing policies to ensure adherence to hygiene and health standards.

Grocery delivery – we have started grocery delivery in 5+ cities across Canada to help with the supply of essentials. Our delivery network in the country is only Canada, and we are putting in every effort to make sure that we put it to good use to serve the community. We’d like to thank the government authorities, grocery stores, FMCG companies & other start-ups that have come forward to partner with us and support the community in this endeavour.

Food Security – DishPal’s mission is ‘better food for more people’. And for some underserved segments of our country, ‘better food’ simply means being able to put some food on the table.

Point wise

No-contact delivery:-DishPal offer their customer’s services like no-contact delivery. The feature makes sure that you do not come in contact with the delivery partner.

Safety badges:-DishPal rolled out safety badges for those who comply with highest standards of hygiene. The badges will be given to restaurants following best practices and that have features like temperature control, masks, sanitation after 4 hours and safe packaging.

Effective Outreach:-DishPal food delivery platforms have begun an outreach programme assuring their customers about the safety of ordering food online. They are informing customers about the best practices being followed in order to win back their trust

Wary customers:-As the coronavirus pandemic spread across Canada, customers are wary whether the food they order from online delivery platforms DishPal is safe or not. Among the concerns is the health of the delivery partner and the hygiene conditions of places where the food is made.