Food Costing/ Menu Engineering
Food Costing and Portion Control are two vital components of operating your kitchen.
Menu Engineering
Most chefs and restaurant managers know the basics of costing a dish, but many have no idea about Menu Engineering and how a particular dish performs as part of the restaurant sales mix Second only to Food Costing, Menu Engineering plays a significant role in determining overall profitability.
Menu Engineering looks at the sales history for each dish on your menu, and relates that item’s selling price and cost price. It then connects the profit margins and the menu mix percentages to see which items are proving popular and also profitable and which dishes are not.
Menu Engineering involves sorting menu items into 4 categories;
* Stars- Extremely popular and have a high contribution margin.
* Plow Horse - high in popularity but low in contribution margin.
* Puzzles - Generally low in popularity and higher contributions.
* Dogs - Low in popularity and low in contribution margin.
When this categorisation is complete it is revealing to see how each dish on your menu is performing in a quantifiable manner.
It’s not just a matter of this dish sells well it is also a matter of what margins are being returned and what purpose does the dish serve by being on the menu.