Isn’t that a fact said right?
Now, what if your restaurant’s chef quits?
Two things can happen.
Either the new chef would make dishes with a different taste or make them worse.
In both scenarios, one thing that’s at stake is the restaurant’s reputation. You never know whether customers are going to like the ‘new you’.
The best way to do away with such dilemmatic situations is to leverage Recipe Management.
It wouldn’t be wrong if I say that food recipes are the crux of a restaurant or any F&B business. An accurate recipe for any dish and a perfectly followed preparation process is what primarily lie behind good taste.
In this blog, I will walk you through all the nitty-gritty of restaurant recipe management. I will also help you understand how technology can be a crucial factor in this entire affair.
Table of Content
What is Recipe Management in Restaurants?
Recipe management is the process of saving a befitting recipe for a dish. It includes the ingredients to be used, the amount in which they are to be used, and of course, the preparation time.
There was a time no such concept was there in the industry. Chefs would prepare food by following generalized or pre-defined methods. However, with time, the industry has evolved and realized the importance of maintaining a particular taste.
Hence, recipe management came into the picture.
And let me tell you, this is the same reason why you like fried chicken from KFC and not from Five Star Chicken. Or, vice versa.
Why Recipe Management is Important?
At the very sight, recipe management doesn’t seem to be of great weightage. However, when you dig deeper, its importance becomes more evident.
Let’s understand this with the help of an example.
Café Exoro had to go through a complete kitchen staff change. But the hotel quickly hired new staff including a chef to keep the ball rolling.
It trained and briefed the new staff on the operations. But despite that, the new staff couldn’t meet the expectations.
The taste of the food varied significantly. Many customers didn’t like the way it was turning out. Additionally, there was a significant waste of raw supplies coming into the restaurant.
Why did this happen? Because of the manual and conventional process of managing recipes. The restaurant failed the ton of calculations and the room for human error. Be it:
- listing all the recipe ingredients;
- calculating ingredient quantity and prices;
- considering individual ingredient costs;
- factoring in labor and waste;
- and deciding on portion and pricing.
Restaurant businesses are sensitive and matters like this quickly escalate to affect the reputations. However, numerous restaurateurs from around the world still pay no heed to recipe management.
This shouldn’t be the case at all. Recipe management in the restaurant industry holds great value and needs to be addressed from the very beginning, and with utmost sincerity.
How Does Technology Help in Restaurant Recipe Management?
It’s no wonder the restaurant industry has gone through tremendous technological transformations. Not just restaurant management systems have gained traction, but recipe management has become sought-after as well.
A recipe management system streamlines the recipe selection process, eliminates the possibility of misprocessing recipe selection, automates the mundane and tedious tasks of managing costs, and manages your inventory.
Let’s look at it deeply.
When your restaurant recipe management software is in sync with your POS system, you get timely updates on the daily consumption of the items made, automatically updating your inventory.
Along these lines, once your stock and inventory levels go down, you’ll be notified to order new supplies; hence automating the complete process.
It can rightly be said that technology has completely eliminated the need for a human to continuously monitor the kitchen inventory.
How Does Recipe Management Help in Booting Revenue?
Now after knowing how exactly technology (a recipe management system, to be precise) works and what it does, I am sure you’ve realized that it is much more than just keeping your food’s taste alive.
It helps manage various departments at your restaurant and boost revenue. Here’s how:
1. Consistency in recipe lowers costs
When you have a dedicated recipe for every dish along with all the steps to go about it, you are already aware of the supplies you would need.
Further, it helps you catalog ingredients and group them into recipes. Meaning, you’ll always be able to track ingredient cost changes, how they impact recipe cost, and make adjustments whenever needed.
2. Maintains kitchen inventory and eliminates wastage
With the right recipe management software, it becomes easy to determine the appropriate portions. Meaning, you can decide the amount of food to serve per person and also set the correct pricing. And with handy information, you get to better purchase supplies, and from the right vendor.
Not to mention, your kitchen staff will know the amount of supplies required to make a certain dish and your inventory will always be balanced, eliminating wastage of supplies (especially, the expensive ones).
Simply put, the inventory and stock management at your restaurant will get streamlined with the right system.
3. Every outlet shares the same vibe
Have you ever noticed that every outlet or franchisee of giants like KFC, McDonald’s, Domino’s, etc. has the same taste of food?
Which is why people don’t give a second thought before visiting a new KFC or a Subway outlet. They know, they are going to enjoy the same taste.
For this, the credit goes to recipe management.
With the right restaurant POS software that also offers recipe management, you can keep the food taste consistent across various outlets and boost sales. It doesn’t matter whether the outlet is in the same city or thousands of miles away.
4. Reduces food preparation and serving time
A restaurant that is always late in serving food quickly attracts negative reviews and loses business.
Do you want that to happen to your eatery? No, Right?
When you have a restaurant recipe management system, your kitchen staff is always handy with everything to cook food on time.
When you prepare food quicker, you’re able to serve quicker; hence, reduce your table turnaround time and cater to more customers.
That, my friend, is the secret to increasing the overall revenue.
5. Drives more loyal customers
What drives customer loyalty in the restaurant industry?
While there are various factors like personalization and communication, hoteliers often overlook the role of managing recipes.
When you offer great taste consistently to your customers, you not only offer a great experience but also gain their trust.
Customers develop a sense of feeling that they can always rely on your restaurant whenever they crave that paprika-flavored chicken thigh.
6. Helps in word-of-mouth marketing
“Have you tried that new restaurant Sardar Ji Da Dhaba? No? Oh, you must. They serve the best Punjabi cuisine in town. I was there with my family last weekend.”
Or, how about this?
“Hey, have you tried that new veg restaurant, Ni4, on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway? They serve amazing veg food. I think I will start eating veg more from now on.”
I am sure, most of you have received restaurant recommendations like these. It’s called word-of-mouth. And again, recipe management plays a great role here.
Some restaurants don’t need high-budget marketing efforts. Their service and food speak volumes and to a larger audience. Most of these restaurants use best-in-class recipe management procedures that help them stay consistent with their food taste.
7. Opens the door for business expansion
One of my restaurateur friends once told me that he never thought about taking franchisee because of the difficulty in maintaining food taste.
What he meant by that is there’s an aspect of ‘training and support’ which also includes maintaining consistency in terms of the taste of the food and the service provided.
Replicating the food taste of an established brand is anyway difficult. And if you fail to support franchisees with recipe and preparation methods, then becomes daunting.
But when you have solutions for recipe management, you’ll not only be able to help your franchisee replicate the food taste, but also help maintain the inventory and function without any hassles.
So, if you want to open avenues of business expansion and attract more franchisees, turn to recipe management and other required systems of training and support.
The easier it gets for franchisees to start the business, the more profit the franchisor will likely make.
The Outlook
The restaurant industry is evolving rapidly. Year after year, the industry is witnessing a great spike in the number of technologies.
While many of the technological solutions get ghosted by businesses, many manage to stay and flourish.
Recipe management systems are one such piece of technology that has been around for a long time but its significance is being understood now.
No doubt, it did take some time for restaurants to accept it, but currently, it’s on a spree to make an impact.
In the years to come, recipe management in the food and beverage industry is going to get more feature-rich. Restaurant businesses that are betting on it at present are going to have a first-mover advantage.
