Özlem

The most common problem in kitchens running two similar products on one line is that the guest does not perceive the difference. In black pepper Spanish salami the spice stays at the surface, so ever…

In sandwich production a sauce is both an ingredient cost and a preparation step: it is made, decanted, spread, and the bench cleaned afterwards. With dry-textured ingredients a sauce is compulsory, …

With a hand-sliced product, portion cost is an estimate rather than a calculation. Slice thickness varies with the person, the day and the rush; the same sandwich made by two different people does no…

The tightest bottleneck in breakfast service is the stove. Eggs, menemen and toasties all call for it at once, and every additional cooking step joins the queue — which means orders waiting on one an…

Being able to use one ingredient at different price points is an advantage that reduces the number of stock lines. With a coil, the portion is decided in the kitchen rather than in the product: a sho…

The number to look at when buying charcuterie is not the raw price per kilo but the cost per cooked gram. Water and fat left in the pan never reach the plate, yet they have been paid for. That loss v…

In a pizza business the margin is made not on one plate but across thousands, which is why small deviations grow. With a hand-sliced ingredient the grams on each pizza vary with slice thickness and w…

The biggest obstacle facing a new brand on a retail shelf is not price but risk. A shopper does not want to pay a high amount for something untried; a large pack makes the possibility of not liking i…

The hardest task in event planning is estimating quantity. With plated dishes the portion varies from guest to guest and leftover food is a straight loss. Items counted by piece remove that uncertain…

There are two kinds of ingredient in a kitchen: those visible on the plate and those that disappear into the sauce. For visible ingredients shape, colour and the neatness of the slice matter; for tho…

The most critical measure for a stand serving on the move is the number of seconds spent per customer. Every step that requires weighing, cutting or counting lengthens the queue, and as the queue gro…

In family restaurants a child's order is a risk line of its own. When a child does not like it the plate comes back, something else is made, the cost doubles — and the whole table's experience suffer…