Team: ACE

◎  McDonald’s

In order to enhance the efficiency of meal delivery, many restaurants adopt new technology.

Nowadays, McDonald’s utilizes the Kitchen Display System. First of all, when a customer orders the food, the staff will take the order via the computer. Then, inside the kitchen, the screen will display the list of food and the priority for staff to cook, assemble and pack. Finally, the staff delivers the packed meal to the customer.

It strengthens the coordination between the staff in cashier and kitchen so as to raise the speed of food delivery. Therefore, enormous numbers of chain restaurants adopt this system as the part of operations.

◎  How Restaurants Do their

Forecasting and Food Cost Control Process

1. Perform food cost calculations

Restaurants should determine what food they want to deliver to customers so that they can calculate the expense of each ingredient of each dish. Food costs include cost of ingredient, delivery and disposal of spoiled food.

For instance, they should know the standard cost for each ingredient on the recipe so they can get the theoretical overall food cost. Then they need to adjust according to the market change.

2) Evaluate menu planning

Most of the food showing on the menu should generate a certain amount of profits. Food price should cover the overhead cost, food cost and tax.

Some menu items with lower profit margins or even loss are used to attract customer visit and the company hope that they will then spend more money on profitable items. Eliminating infamous items to reduce the food costs.

3) Purchasing process

Restaurants should work and collaborate with suppliers to ensure they receive the correct information such as the order requirement and expected prices. The restaurants then can compare the quotations from several suppliers to choose the most suitable supplier base.

4) Seasonal history and trend research

Consumers' appetites and favour are easily affected by several factors like time, weather and trend. Companies need to take these factors into consideration when designing menu. Also, the availability of the food and the associated costs should be identified. For example, crab specialty restaurants experience fluctuating demand over a year. The supply and demand of Chinese Mitten Crabs increase in October.

5) Technology- Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID)

RFID is a technology automatically identifying and tracking tags attached to objects. With this technology, restaurants are able to enhance the efficiency of inventory system as well as the visibility of inventory. Therefore, the companies can have better inventory management resulting in the decrease of inventory costs.

In addition, RFID can enhance the security. The tag is attached to the inventory that the company can trace the location of the inventory.

Apart from that, the readability and security of the inventory increase, different from the traditional barcode technology that the inventory can only be read individually. This helps reduce the labour force and lower the labour cost.

Ref: retrieved from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/control-cost-food-labor-restaurant-service-66929.html, http://www.ehow.com/info_12166336_kind-sales-forecasting-use-restaurant.html, and http://www.losangelesrestaurantconsultant.com/managing-restaurant-food-costs/food-cost-control-system/

◎  Updated Trends about

Restaurant Operations

1. Social media as an advertising tool

With the prevalence of the use of social media like Facebook and Twitter, many businesses take this chance to integrate their promotional strategy with social media. For example, most of them create Facebook fan pages for promoting their restaurants. “Liking” the fan page can create effects of virus advertising to increase the exposure.

Also, they provide certain discounts if customers show the “Liked” status or participate in the page activites. Moreover, restaurants use the “restaurant guide website” to promote their business.

On the other hand, websites like Openrice provide restaurant reviews and allow restaurants to place advertisements. People can search the restaurants and get more information about the shops very conveniently.

2) Sustainable and healthy food

In recent years, there has been greater emphasis on health. People look for the food with less sugar and fat. For instance, Café de Coral provides and highlights healthy meals, and promotes balanced diets.