Recipe Development Principles
The business of restaurant provides the opportunity to serve food items and dishes to the customers. This business largely depends upon the food services. In the present scenario of globalization, the professionals engaged in this business are trying to provide the best services with the help of tools and techniques of the food and beverage industry. People select to have their food from restaurants and other food outlets on the special occasions, at the time of working outside from home or for changing their taste from regular food (Filimonau & Krivcova, 2017). At the time of developing recipes and the menu, a restaurant should consider the target audience and their purpose of preferring the outside food. Menu planning and product development is the main issue in this regard, which should be done by considering some principles and service methods. This report includes various factors that influence the process of the menu and product development.
A recipe is a tested and standardized procedure of food preparing, which includes the use of ingredients, the pre-determined order of mixing and proportions, time and temperature for cooking to produce tasty and uniformed products. Carelessness in variations and measurements in the preparation methods and procedures can create some undesirable changes in the final product. For avoiding such carelessness, there are some principles related to the recipe development which are required to follow at the time of recipe development:
A recipe should be developed by following the appropriate steps in a constant manner. It includes grilling, boiling, cooking, presenting and serving the final product to the customer. This process is required to be followed very smoothly to provide the best quality product to customers.
The recipe should include all such products and ingredients that may fulfill the nutrition requirement of the dish. Avoidance of having nutritional factors may harmful to the health of customers. It may also result in the violation of “Food Standards Act, 1999″. Therefore a restaurant should consider appropriate nutritious health development of its customer (Baines & Seal, 2012).
The main constituent of the recipe development is the ability and aptitude development of the staff to endorse well cooked and hygienic food in the menu. Therefore, a restaurant should adopt the best cooking style of the recipe and train the cooks and chefs accordingly. It may help in developing the taste and quality of food and thus increasing the number of customers of the restaurant (Luque, 2016).
There should also be created in the recipe in comparison to the competitors. A customer always gets attracted to something which is creative as well as attractive. It may include the presentation of the dish as well as the change in regular taste of the dish that is often provided by the competitors in the market (Church, 2015).
The consistency of products and services is the main factors that influence the recipe development process. All the products that are required to make a dish should be consistently available. Because if the raw material or products are not available then the dish may not be prepared in a proper manner at all times. For this purpose, the restaurant should ensure the timely availability of raw material and maintain good relations with the suppliers as well (Fuller, 2016).
Nutrition Requirement
The menu planning is largely affected by the services provided by competitors as the restaurant should include all such services that are preferred by the customers, in a specific and unique way. The well existed competitors and their goodwill work as a barrier of the new restaurant in preparing the customer base (Jakhete & Mankar, 2015).
It the restaurant is situated in the middle of the city then it will have more chances to attract the customers and the menu will also be planned accordingly. In this way, the location of the customer forces the restaurant to include some specific items as per the surroundings.
This includes the current market and customer trends of the UK that may influence a restaurant to change the menu items on the basis of customer preference. The market trend can be described as the responsiveness of services providers as per the demands of customers.
Availability of space and equipment affects the menu planning as a restaurant having low minimum space in the kitchen and sitting area cannot include a variety of dishes as this may become trouble for the management to in case of a number of demands of the customers at the same time.
The supply of raw material is an important factor as the restaurant cannot include such food items, the raw material for which is not available near to the restaurant.
The menu is required to be cost-effective in such a way so that it may provide profit to the restaurant after deducting all the expenses and can also become pocket-friendly to the customers.
A restaurant cannot include such dishes in its menu that cannot the prepared by the available staff. Therefore the capability of staff affects the menu in a direct manner as preparations of food by an unprofessional staff member can lead to a decrease in the quality of the dish.
The rules and legislation related to the “Food Safety Act, 1990”, “Food Standards Act, 1999” and “The Food and Safety Order, 1991”, impacts the menu development. These acts provide the guidelines related to the safety and health of human beings by the dishes involved in the menu.
A restaurant may provide a number of services to its customers or may also opt for any one service method with the perfection. The different service methods are table service, self-service, single point service and trolley service.
Customer mostly prefers the table service as it is one of the oldest and convenient services for customers as well as restaurants. In this method, there is no need of providing any kind of special training to the staff (Aramouni & Deschenes, 2014).
The table service method requires more staff in comparison to other methods and as one waiter is required to serve food for one table at a time. If a restaurant has a number of tables then it may need to employ more staff and it may result in increasing the cost of food as there will be an increase in the investment cost.
Staff Development
This method needs a lot of space and kitchen equipment as a number of customers are served at the same time and it needs the preparation of many dishes. The need of having more equipment arises when there is a consistency in the footfall of customers and the restaurant is offering a variety of dishes.
The owner and menu developer is required to understand the market conditions of food and beverage industries and should analyze the needs and reasons behind the dissatisfaction of customers form current service providers (Ozdemir & Caliskan, 2014).
After analyzing the market trend, the next stage includes the generation of an idea that should be adopted by the restaurant. The generated idea should also be innovative in unique that can help in attracting the customers
On the basis of the generated idea, the menu is developed by following the above-mentioned principles. The owner should also consider the influencing factors and try to eliminate the negatives of them (Submission, 2010).
At this stage, the generated idea is evaluated to find the compatibility with the objectives of the restaurant. The menu development idea should be able to fulfill the goals of the restaurant without any failure.
SWOT analyses is performed to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the restaurant by identifying the strengths and opportunities existed in its business environment.
The developing trends in the food and beverage industry are analyzed so that the menu and product can be developed accordingly. Because if the menu developed is outdated, then it will surely become the reason for the disappointment of customers (Trang, et al., 2015).
It includes analyzing the changing needs of customers to provide the best services in present and also to forecast the future changes so that services can be developed accordingly. Exotic and bold flavors with wellness and health are the main customer’s preferences in the UK.
After analyzing the trends of various customers, the restaurant needs to decide the target customers and industry so that it can focus on developing the menu on the basis of target customers.
It includes deciding the responsibilities of employees and recruits new employees like chefs, waiters, receptionist etc. for the purpose of applying the menu and product development planning and strategies (Smith & Charter, 2011).
In a brainstorming session, employees discuss their ideas and opinions on a topic and issue without opposing the opinions of each other. This stage includes with communicating the idea and opinions of menu development so that a good solution can be framed on the basis of opinions of all employees. This session may resolve the production related problems of the management and the workers.
AT this stage, the restaurant is required to decide the service methods to deliver the best quality of services to the customers and suitable for the developed menu and products. A restaurant should use such service method which is preferred by the customers and not provided by any of its competitors in the market.
The concept of the restaurant is required to be new and innovative according to the target market. The restaurant should adopt a tree house restaurant, beachside restaurant or the concept of the food truck etc (Yurtseven & Kaya, 2011).
Creativity
The restaurant cannot develop its services and products in the absence of various resources including financial and human resources. It must have adequate sources of finance and also human beings to use such finance in an effective manner.
The ongoing changes and development affect the process of the menu and product development as there are chances of changing the demands of customers. This may affect the development process inversely.
Feasibility in providing services is also a major concern and a restaurant should include such recipes that can be provided to customers with an ease. This ease includes the easiness in getting raw material and easy booking process etc.
The development process should be cost effective and should not involve much cost in comparison to the budgeted amount (Halagarda, 2008).
It includes issues related to the availability of chefs, storage of raw material, availability of required equipment and utensils etc.
The conditions of the external environment affect the process of development of a restaurant and its services a lot. In order to understand such impact, the restaurant must consider the following factors of the external environment.
Conclusion:
On the basis of above discussion, it can be concluded that the food and beverage industry is growing day by day. This also impacts the recipe planning and menu development area of the food industry. A restaurant should consider the above-mentioned principles to develop an effective recipe that can attract customers in an easy manner. After the development of recipe, the menu should also be prepared after analyzing the influences of the above-mentioned factors so that the corrective actions can be taken timely. The menu and product development is not an easy process as it used to be before two or three decades. In the present scenario, most of the customers get attracted by an effective menu. Therefore, a restaurant is required to perform such task in a professional manner by following the above-mentioned process and steps.
References
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