Sponsored by CHEF-MATE®
More and more consumers are starting their day with a visit to, or an order from, a restaurant. Clearly, that is a signal to operators that there is plenty of room to maintain and even grow traffic during the breakfast and brunch dayparts.
“Breakfast at restaurants was adversely affected in the early stages of the pandemic, but it has been recovering now that more consumers have returned to out-of-the-home routines,” said David Portalatin, NPD Food Industry Advisor and author of Eating Patterns in America, in a recent statement.
Yet, with fewer staff in the kitchen, nearly all operators will need to reimagine staffing, redevelop dishes, and re-engineer menus. But operators will also have to keep it up, as industry experts say the current labor challenges are not expected to ease anytime soon. Below are three solutions to help operators overcome labor-related obstacles.
- Get ready-to-eat
Whether you want to expand your menu, offer a versatile brunch bar, or simply get creative, making an entire menu from scratch every day can be difficult. Enter ready-to-eat products.
Ready-to-eat products, such as those made by CHEF-MATE®, are prepared with high-quality ingredients to ensure the best taste, and they can be served as is or tweaked to add a chef’s personal touch. In addition, ready-to-eat products equip operators to serve scratch-quality dishes safely, quickly, and cost-effectively.
With ready-to-eat products, such as CHEF-MATE® Country Sausage Gravy, in the pantry, it’s a breeze for the kitchen staff to whip up classic comfort food dishes for brunch. Think hearty dishes like country sausage gravy and biscuits; a sausage, egg, and cheese quiche; or a sausage hash brown breakfast casserole.
- Return to canned
Canned foods are making a major comeback in restaurant kitchens due in part to their ability to solve some of today’s operators’ most pressing problems — like supply-chain challenges and labor shortages. At the same time, canned food companies have stepped up their game, offering greater variety of high-quality products for operators to choose from. Plus, innovations like CHEF-MATE®’s Cooked Before Canning™ proprietary approach which pressure cooks food before it’s canned, ensures ingredients are perfectly cooked, and seals out any tinny taste, burnt notes, and gasses that can negatively impact taste, texture, and aroma.
CHEF-MATE®’s Corned Beef Hash, is a canned product that gives operators versatility both back of house and on their menu. Creating classic comfort food dishes for brunch is no longer too time- or labor- intensive. All it takes is a twist of the can opener to bring within reach hearty brunch dishes, such as classic corned beef hash over toast, or an Irish-American dish of corned beef hash topped with an over-easy egg and a side of toast served in a cast-iron skillet. in the pantry.
Using cans also reduces the need to have so many different ingredients in the back of the house and allows staff to use canned foods when they need them versus making a scratch batch and wasting what’s left over. With an 18-month shelf-life, CHEF-MATE® products can also help keep your pantry full amid supply chain delays.
- Stress less with speed-scratch
Not ready to give up on scratch cooking, but too understaffed to pull it off? Speed-scratch, which combines high-quality prepared food products with those made from scratch, can help you to serve up memorable meals without over-taxing the staff you do have in the kitchen.
Using speed-scratch products, such as those CHEF-MATE® has been making for more than three decades, operators can eliminate high-labor prep work such as cracking eggs, extra vegetable peeling, or making stocks, sauces, and dressings. Suddenly, serving up breakfast and brunch favorites such as egg, sausage, and cheese biscuit sandwiches; prepared items for a self-serve brunch bar; or the perfect personal pepperoni pizzas can be made quickly and consistently. Other benefits of speed-scratch include the freedom to offer more menu variety and the ability to devise premium dishes with higher price points and less pressure on the kitchen—for example, creating a selection of signature sauces for eggs, French toast, and other brunch favorites.
Less (time, labor) is money
Whether you stock the pantry with quality, ready-to-eat products, speed-scratch ingredients or canned foods—or a combination of all three—you’ll be empowering your kitchen staff to maximize prep speed, jump-start innovation, ensure consistency, and so much more. All of which will benefit your staff, your customers, and your bottom line.
>>Ready to learn more about how CHEF-MATE® ready-to-eat to can help your operation strategize a morning meal menu? Visit our website
