A new menu cycle for six sites
Your autumn menu cycle is due. The executive chef has written it as a four-week rotation, with a hot main, a vegetarian option, a grab-and-go range and a soup of the day. Each site takes the cycle but adapts it: the factory site wants bigger portions and an earlier breakfast, the college has a lower tariff agreed with the client, and one office site has a smaller kitchen that cannot do certain dishes.
So the cycle is copied into six spreadsheets and edited. Each site manager costs their version against their tariff. Tariffs are updated on the tills by hand. Menu boards are printed at each site. When the executive chef changes a dish in week two, the change reaches some sites and not others.
One menu, six copies
Menu cycles are designed centrally and delivered locally, which is the right model. The problem is that copying the cycle into site spreadsheets breaks the link between the central menu and what each site actually does.
- Dishes are copied as text, so their recipes and costs do not travel with them.
- Each site's tariff is agreed with its client and stored in a different document.
- Costing against tariff is done differently at each site.
- Till prices and menu boards are updated manually, site by site.
- Central changes during a cycle depend on emails being read and acted on.
Head office cannot easily answer simple questions, like what the college is serving on Wednesday of week three, or which sites are selling a dish below cost.
What the copies cost
Dishes sold below their target margin at some sites go unnoticed because each site's costing is its own. Till prices drift out of line with agreed tariffs, which clients notice, especially if they subsidise the service. Menu boards and allergen information may not match the dish being served after a mid-cycle change.
The executive chef and site managers also spend hours on work that is repeated at every site: copying, costing, typing up menus and updating tills, instead of cooking and improving the food.
A central planner with site variations
- Dishes are held centrally with their recipes, costs and portion sizes, and each site can have an agreed variation such as a larger portion.
- A menu cycle is built once from central dishes, and each site selects which dishes it runs and in which weeks, based on its kitchen and client.
- Each site's tariff is stored with its effective dates. The planner shows each dish's cost against that site's tariff price and highlights anything below your target margin.
- When the cycle is approved, prices and descriptions are pushed to each site's till system where it has an API, and exported where it does not.
- Menu screens and printed menus are generated for each site from the same data, including the dish information your procedures require.
- Mid-cycle changes are made centrally, and each affected site is notified and its tills and menus updated.
| Output | Built from | Updated when |
|---|---|---|
| Site menu for the week | Cycle and site selections | A dish changes |
| Cost against tariff | Recipe costs and site tariff | A price or recipe changes |
| Till price list | Site tariff | Tariff or cycle approved |
| Menu board and screens | Dish descriptions | Any dish change |
Tariff changes remain a commercial matter between you and each client. The planner makes their effect on margin visible before you agree them.
A cycle launched once, not six times
The executive chef writes the cycle once and sees at a glance where it works and where it does not for each site's tariff. Site managers receive a finished menu for their site, costed, with tills and boards updated. When a dish changes mid-cycle, every site that runs it gets the change the same day.
Head office can see what every site is serving, at what price and margin, which makes client reviews and menu planning for the next cycle much more straightforward.
Menu development gets easier as well. When the chef wants to try a new dish, the planner shows immediately which sites could run it within their tariff and kitchen, rather than a round of emails to find out.
Could this be your menu planning?
- Each site has its own copy of the menu cycle in a spreadsheet.
- Till prices are updated by hand at each site.
- Mid-cycle changes do not reach every site.
- Head office cannot easily see margin by dish across sites.
- Menu boards are typed up locally each week.