Management: A Tough Kitchen Guideline

This is not for everyone. In fact, many readers will critique me for the suggested action plan that follows. They will say that management needs to “trust” their staff to follow policies and guidelines. That being said, I have dozens of consulting clients who follow my concept and have had positive results.

In most catering kitchens, formulas already exist for determining the amounts of foods to be sent with a full or self-service order. For example, the kitchen staff may know that on drop-off meat trays one sends a total of 5 ounces of meat for each guest. So, the trays would have a total of 11 pounds of meat (10.9 actually, but rounded up correctly to 11 pounds) for 35 guests.  Or, if your culinary team is hand-forming hamburgers for 100 guests, each one should weigh 7 ounces. Or, if your formula for sending rice pilaf is five guests to the pound, then you know how much should be going to the event.

My point is that, in the examples above, the culinary team knows how much they are supposed to send. The problem is created by being behind time deadlines, staff that is not trained correctly, a scale that is not calibrated properly, or a host of other reasons. Someone needs to check these targeted weights. After all, I do believe you set your prices based on what expected food costs are supposed to be.

The truth is that if we are just one ounce “heavy” on the hamburgers we are sending 6.25 pounds of meat extra. This doesn’t take into account the extra hamburgers you already send to insure non-embarrassment at the event if the client has extra guests stop in or if I am a guest and take an extra burger! So, in fact, these extra safety net hamburgers actually lose even more profit.

Someone, other than the one making or packing the order for delivery needs to take a pan of rice, or a finished meat tray or a hamburger and actually check to see if the weight or amounts are correct. Let’s not forget that if the error being made is making the amounts or weights smaller than the formula calls for even more damage may occur to the company image for running short on some menu items.

Am I being just a jerk for suggesting this? Is this concern of mine a little aggressive and paranoid? Right on both counts, but in the world I come from, ounces add up to improper food amounts that either lose profit or damage company reputations.

Let me close where I began. Most owners and managers find this “double-checking” to threaten their trust relationships with their staff. Most can’t do it even if they wanted to. I realize that smaller caterers, who have less staff, are less prone to take these steps because they themselves are emerged in the creation of the food. But, in larger kitchens with six or more culinary members, checking needs to be done.

Well, I hope I haven’t disturbed anyone with my thoughts. Discuss it with your team and see how they react!