Menu Transformations: New Challenges

Entegra brought together Executive Chefs from our suppliers for tips on the best ways to design menus for the current industry needs.

To help guide entegra’s clients and the foodservice industry, we brought together chefs from Campbells, Unilever, and General Mills for a webinar to share their best practices of how to design quality menus as the food service industry reopens during the COVID pandemic. Here are some of their suggestions.

With the COVID-19 crisis impacting all industries across the world, food service operations are facing a new set of unprecedented challenges. As the foodservice industry begins to re-open; new business practices, challenges and opportunities must be embraced. How we respond and thrive in this new environment will have long term implications to the foodservice landscape. According to Technomic, “The Post-Pandemic Playbook,”*  and from the Chefs on our webinar, some key issues to address are:

• Focus on training staff: Having cross-trained staff that can handle multiple duties will be critical.

  • Consider more use of pre-made, convenience products

  • Train for speed scratch preparation o Ensure consistency through proper training

• Assess and evaluate the menu: Focus on items that are most profitable and travel well.

  • Get back to basics with the core dishes that you do well

  • Items that customers crave

  • Comfort food

• Understand your vulnerable areas: Consumer perceptions of hygiene are more important than ever.

  • Maintain visibility of sanitizing efforts, social distancing signage, PPE for employees

  • Be sensitive and accommodating to customer concerns – build confidence for them to return! 

• Maintain and build relationships with distributor partners: They are critical for you to be informed about ingredient availability and the reopening of the restaurant industry.

  • Work together to use high inventory items in your recipes

  • Be proactive in menu development

  • Anticipate potential shortages of commodity items

• Prioritize safety and sanitization.

  • Use tamper-proof packaging

  • Contact-less payment

*Technomic. (2020). The PostPandemicPlaybook.

Watch the archived webinar here.