Thursday in the production kitchen
Friday has a corporate lunch for 80, a charity dinner for 220 and a drinks reception for 150. Saturday has two weddings. Much of it is prepared on Thursday and Friday in your unit, then finished on site.
The head chef has five function sheets. Each has its own menu, and three of them use the same red wine jus, two use the same focaccia and all of them need herb oil. Working out quantities means scaling each recipe for each event, then adding up the shared items, then allowing for tasting portions and staff meals. It happens on a whiteboard and a notepad. On a busy week it gets redone twice because numbers change.
Recipes are scaled per event, not per day
Kitchen planning usually follows the paperwork, and the paperwork is organised by event. Production does not work that way. A pastry section makes all the pastry for the day, whichever event it is for.
- Recipes are written for a set yield and scaled by hand.
- Shared components across menus are added up mentally or not at all.
- Prep for a Saturday event may need to start on Thursday, but nothing works backwards from the event date.
- Number changes after the prep plan is made are not reflected in it.
- Sections get a verbal briefing rather than a written list.
The head chef ends up doing a daily planning exercise that could be calculated, which takes them off the stove when they are most needed.
Overproduction, underproduction and a tired head chef
When the arithmetic is done in a hurry, the safe choice is to make more, so overproduction and waste creep up. When it goes the other way, a section runs short and someone scrambles on the day. Both cost food, time and stress.
The dependency on one person is the bigger risk. If the head chef is off, a sous chef has to reconstruct their method from scattered notes, which is when mistakes happen.
Timing is the other hidden cost. Some components are better made two days ahead, some must be made on the day, and some can be frozen. When the plan is built event by event, the kitchen can end up making the same base twice on different days, or cramming Friday because Thursday's capacity was not used. A plan that looks across the whole week spreads the work across the days the kitchen actually has.
A production plan built from confirmed events
- Recipes are held as structured records: yield, components, section and how far ahead each component can be made.
- Confirmed events feed their menus and current numbers in, including dietary variations.
- The system builds a production plan by day, working back from each event date using the lead time of each component.
- Shared components are combined across events, so the jus is one batch with a note of which events it feeds.
- Lists are split by section (larder, pastry, hot) and can be printed or shown on a kitchen screen.
- When numbers change, the plan shows what moved, so the chef adjusts one line rather than redoing the whole day.
| Component | Events | Made on | Section |
|---|---|---|---|
| Red wine jus | Charity dinner, wedding A, wedding B | Thursday | Hot |
| Focaccia | Corporate lunch, drinks reception | Friday morning | Pastry |
| Herb oil | All five | Thursday | Larder |
| Vegan main | Charity dinner, wedding B | Friday | Hot |
The plan can include your own allowances for tasting and staff food, set as rules rather than guesses. How much you allow is your decision.
A kitchen that plans itself, mostly
The head chef reviews a plan instead of building it, and adjusts where judgement is needed. Sections know what they are making and for which event before they start. When a client adds twenty guests on Thursday afternoon, the plan shows the extra quantities for each component in one place.
The same data feeds ingredient ordering if you want it to, so the order reflects what the kitchen is actually going to make.
Signs this would help
- Prep planning happens on a whiteboard or notepad each week.
- Shared components across events are totalled mentally.
- Only the head chef can plan a busy production week.
- Number changes mean redoing prep quantities by hand.
- You regularly have leftovers from overproduction.