Anne, Author at Hospitality

Food profitability

Would you like to learn a few specific skills which would make your Hospitality Business easier to run?

Are you on track to meet your Budget for the year, or are you just hoping things will turn out alright?

Can you demonstrate complete confidence in your food pricing and profit margins?

Our accredited course Design & Cost Menus is a hands-on, one day, face-to-face program, complete with all the free templates and software you will need to ensure you are charging the right price for your menu items, and delighting your customers – not to mention tidying up your bottom line!

Cost is just $370 all-inclusive (even M/T and Lunch). You will take away some fully costed and printed menu items – with the knowledge of how to tweak them for better profitability and peace of mind.

Use the free software to cost out your top 10 menu items when you return home, and impress your Accountant and Bank Manager.

Managing Risk in the Food Services Industry

The following provides practical guidance to assist persons conducting a business or undertaking (PCBUs) in the food services industry to meet their work health and safety duties. The food services industry includes businesses that prepare and serve food, such as restaurants, cafés, clubs, bars, pubs, fast food outlets etc.

There can be significant health and safety risks in the food services industry, increased in part by the large proportion of young (15-24 years old), part-time or casual workers.

The work is typically physically demanding and conducted under pressure which may lead to a higher risk of injuries. Also, workers are required to engage with the public which introduces an increased risk of violence and harassment.

Young workers may be at an increased risk of workplace injury due to their lack of experience and maturity, and they may be less aware of WHS risks and responsibilities.

They may also be:

developing their skills, competencies and physical capabilities
unfamiliar with appropriate workplace behaviours
reluctant to make requests, ask questions or speak out about problems
overly keen to please and make a good impression, and
over-confident in their capabilities.

Managing risks

As a PCBU, you must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of workers and others at your workplace. This includes providing and maintaining a work environment that is without risks to physical and psychological health and safety and ensuring workers are given the necessary information, training, instruction and supervision that is needed for them to carry out their work safely.

To manage health and safety risks you must:

identify hazards in the workplace
assess the associated risks
implement control measures to eliminate or minimise risks, and
regularly review control measures to ensure they remain effective.

You must do these things in consultation with your workers and any health and safety representatives.

There are guidelines to assist your Safety representatives to carry out their duties under the Act:

https://www.worksafe.qld.gov.au/laws-and-compliance/codes-of-practice

How long is it since you have reviewed your WHS practices and procedures?

Contact Anne (0431 969 595) or email to discuss our comprehensive (Cert IV level) course Implement and monitor WHS practices which will bring you up to date on current and impending changes across the sector.

Focus on what makes you stand out

What makes your restaurant different from other restaurants? What makes you unique?

Articulate what makes you stand out from the competition. People don’t just want to try new food, they’re looking for new experiences. They can get great food anywhere else, but it’s much harder to be part of something authentic.

If you tell a good story, the experience at your restaurant might just be more meaningful for your guests.

People relate to people, they don’t relate to business jargon and numbers. A great story moves the reader emotionally, or at the very least offers something readers can understand in a real and personal way.

Think about:

Who is important in the story of your restaurant?

How did they feel when they were struggling to get it off the ground?

What was their mission, and why are they so passionate about it today?

Answer those questions in your story, and you’re off to a great start.

If you need help in designing a great Menu which really tells your story to the world, call Anne (0431 969 595) about our Design and cost menus stand-alone one day course. Or email us here

Food labeling requirements

If you are selling pre-packaged or frozen food (say at a Market Stall), you must include both a list of ingredients with percentages of each, and a Nutrition Information Panel. See the Food Standards Australia website for a USERGUIDE which lists foods exempt from this requirement – not many!

If your product contains all Australian ingredients, it may pay to add the Made in Australia logo to your package in addition to the above.

If you have only a few products that you need to label, you can make your own Nutrition Information Panel by going to: https://www.foodstandards.gov.au/industry/npc/Pages/nutrition-panel-calculator.aspx

You will find the instructions on the LHS of the page.

If you are a previous client of AIBI (ie you have completed one of our courses in the past, such as Food Costing, or Food Safety Supervisor) just call us and we will send you the step-by-step instructions.

Food Costing Course

Our ‘Design and cost menus’ one-unit module gives you an accredited skill in just one day of very interesting work.

This training will prove to be a useful addition to your career skill set, and will also stand the test of time. Once mastered, you have it for life.

If you have horrible visions of spreadsheets and calculators, put your mind at rest. There’s no need to do all the hard work by hand these days – free software is available to do the number crunching for you.

Enrolments are now open for this face-to-face course. Email us for more information, or to make a booking.

Your Master Recipe File

Perhaps the worst Management stressor in a Hospitality setting is the sudden departure of a key staff member – for example a Chef – especially an Executive Chef.

If he/she has been in charge of recipe development, do your signature dishes leave also?

Of course it is a breach of fiduciary duty for this to occur, but who’s got time to argue this in court?

Stay ahead of the game by insisting on a Master Recipe File for each new Menu.

This should be in standard format – Name of dish; Ingredients (mls or gms); Number of serves; Method.

Check the Master Recipe File off against the new menu to make sure that all the dishes are included. Don’t forget the BATCH RECIPES for sauces and other popular bulk preparations. Save your Master Recipe File in a folder along with the Menu, or in an easily accessible Folder on your computer.

Now you have a resource that:

Provides you with insurance against the loss of your property when someone leaves
Allows you to move forward swiftly in the event of a staff shake-up, reducing your stress
Allows for an accurate COSTING of the menu – before, rather than after deployment

Want to know more about how to accurately cost out your menu (and ensure each dish is within your Gross Profit guidelines)?

We offer a one-day short course – Design and cost menus – with hands-on food costing experience for your staff using your own menu. Alternatively we can have our elves do all the work for you! We can even keep your food costing up-to-date on a monthly basis if you don’t have the time.

For more information about the above, phone our office on (07) 5227 9659 or directly email Anne

Is this the year to tackle your food costs once and for all?

You’re open – You’re closed – You’re open again.

Chefs come. Chefs go. Menus change. Prices change.

Do you know exactly what’s happened to your food costs this year?

Do you know exactly how much each dish is adding to your bottom line?

Are your best sellers actually making you money? How much? Could they be doing better?

So many headaches – one answer:

Our new nationally accredited course: Design and cost menus

Send along your Head Chef – Function Manager – Restaurant Manager – and lay the devil to rest.

What will they learn?

1. How to identify market trends and identify target markets

2. How to develop new menus for YOUR establishment. Why standard recipes matter.

3. How to cost YOUR menus and tweak for profitability (free software tools you can use forever)

4. How to write a menu for maximum appeal. Menu engineering tips and tricks.

5. How to monitor menu performance, and tweak it in accord with feedback and profitability

What will they take away?

Skills to last a lifetime
Free menu costing software
Supervised hands-on costing of some of your own menu items
An acute understanding of how staff behaviour affects your bottom line