Why setting up a supply chain is important in the food industry
| Do you own a restaurant? Are you thinking of starting your own food cart? It could be a very long and rigorous task especially if you do not have any experience in the food industry. From creating a brand name, finding the right location, setting up a supply chain to reduce costs can be very challenging. Although it may be difficult, once you have a working system in place everything should run smoothly. We think that setting up the supply chain is the most important aspect of any food business. Let’s get started! Choosing the correct quality of ingredients for your restaurant It’s important to choose the correct quality of ingredients depending on who your target market is. For example, if you’re selling food in a higher-end community, you might want to choose more expensive ingredients to cater to their taste buds, and vice versa. Another term that restaurant owners should acquaint themselves with is food grading. Food grading is a process wherein a person or a machine inspects food quality regarding the freshness and the market value of various foods. There are different kinds of food grading per category of food. Also, food grading may differ depending on the country where you’re from. We will not dive deeper into different kinds of grading for each food category, but you need to be aware that having a lower or a higher food grade may affect the overall taste of your food. If needed, you can always ask your food supplier for more information about their product regarding the food grade, and its quality. Keeping your costs low When restaurants are looking to increase revenue, they either need to increase their prices or decrease the cost of operation or their cost of goods sold. Increasing food prices on the menu may help increase your revenue, but it may also have a negative effect for the restaurant’s customers. Oftentimes, increasing the prices of food on the menu only works if the perceived value of your product is higher than the price it is being offered for. If you feel that increasing your prices may negatively affect your restaurant, you may always look to change your operational costs and the cost of ingredients. As for operating costs, there are three ways to lower your cost. You can start by letting go of an employee, and try running the restaurant or food cart with lesser employees. As a business owner i’m sure that you’re aware that every year rent for most if not all lessees go up. As your contract ends with the lessor, you may try to bargain a deal with them to make sure that your rent doesn’t go up substantially. Lastly, you can change or remove expensive ingredients from your recipe to reduce cost. If needed, you may always look for a more affordable wholesale supplier of food ingredients or produce that will better fit your budget. Where to buy affordable ingredients A lot of the times restaurants and food carts source their supply from the most convenient shops surrounding their establishment. With that, we want to share with you multiple establishments and online platforms where any restaurant or food cart owner can look for ingredients, packaging, and any other food related equipment that one might need. The most convenient and expensive way to get your supply of ingredients from is the grocery store. Although, it might be expensive to source ingredients from the nearest grocery store. It will save you a lot of time and effort looking for a food supplier. If it’s available, another cheap way to source ingredients from is the flea market. Depending on the market, you can find almost anything there from fresh produce to poultry. Lastly, you can always go online to find a wholesale supplier of the ingredients you might need. There are tons of online wholesalers, so you can easily find any ingredients or food equipment that you might need for your business. Following all these pointers will hopefully make your supply chain better, more efficient, reduce the cost of your business, and most importantly increase your revenue. |