NEW YORK CITY – As 2017 winds down, there’s still time for retailers to showcase limited-time foodservice offers with a flavor of the season, QSR Web reports. New LTOs keep your customers interested and your brand fresh while driving sales. Here are some things to keep in mind as you run a LTO.

1. Know your food-safety risks. Many LTOs incorporate new ingredients, so it’s wise for retailers to know how to keep and store those ingredients safely. For example, ingredients could arrive in different packaging, such as reduced oxygen or vacuum-sealed packaging, that your kitchen staff might not be familiar with or know the proper way to handle those items.

Also, ensure your staff has the proper equipment to safely handle the new ingredients. For example, if you mainly did pizzas, but have added chicken wings as a LTO, you will need separate areas for prepping the raw meat.

2. Plan staffing and supplies. Talk with your supplier to ensure you will have a balance of adequate quantities of ingredients to avoid selling out on launch day, while not wasting food. Also look at your staff roster to make sure you will have enough workers per shift, especially during peak times.

3. Provide training. Team meetings and demos will help your staff to know how to cook—and how to sell—the new LTOs. Tastings for your staff will also help gin up enthusiasm. Don’t overlook cleaning techniques for any new equipment added for the LTOs. Also have staff, especially frontline staff, memorize the ingredients of the new products in order to answer customer questions.

4. Measure success. While this entire process to bring a LTO on the menu can take months, don’t forget to have a way to assess whether the item was successful. If you’ve added LTO promotions or instore signage or had staff ask customers to try the LTO, you’ll need ways to measure what worked and what didn’t.