Streamline Menu Offerings and Consider Ingredient Substitutions
1. Streamline Menu Offerings
Find that almost 30% of items on your restaurant food inventory list have been affected by supply chain shortages? Consider simplifying menu offerings via reengineering. The process involves reviewing and redesigning menu offerings in keeping with price increases and supply shortages.
Some steps you can take are to streamline the entire menu, rework ingredient options, and manage portion sizes without affecting overall quality. You can also limit your menu to 40 items and control a la carte portion sizes to individual servings. Keep menu items for sharing at two portions max. And promote lesser-known items in favor of bestsellers with limited rations via effective marketing tools.
This approach allows you to shift the focus from supply chain management to other demanding areas. More importantly, it permits owners to maintain a customer experience that is stable and consistent.
2. Consider Ingredient Substitutions
Besides menu simplifications, kitchens everywhere can consider ingredient substitutions and recipe reinventions. Rather than pie crust recipes made with flour, switching to graham cracker crusts allows an F&B business to continue meeting consumer demands. Plant-based alternatives fix scarcity concerns in animal milk used in many dishes. Sweeteners like honey, agave, stevia can take the place of sugar in certain recipes. Meanwhile available veggies like kamote, squash, turnips, and carrots are great alternatives for potatoes.
The key to addressing supply shortfalls is to be creative in cooking. Doing so also provides you with an opportunity to introduce new dishes. One example is salted egg calamari made with shelf-stable Knorr Salted Egg Powder, which is 88% cheaper than scratch-made. Compared to raw materials like butter, salted eggs, and garlic, using ready-made powders ensures the kitchen has a regular supply of ingredients. Stock up on products that provide a one-step solution such as Hellmann’s. This reduces costs and the need for multiple ingredients in your inventory. Purchasing wholesale also provides businesses with reliable pricing and flexible payment terms. Source: unileverfoodsolutions.com.ph