Stange & Co. is a fourth-generation, family-owned business that has been running pubs for over thirty years. Employing 300 staff across eight sites, they know what it takes to run successful hospitality and accommodation businesses.
But using a combination of spreadsheets to manage eight sites simultaneously, keeping on top of nutrition and allergen information, and updating a menu so that customers and staff have the correct information to hand required an enormous amount of manual entry and was too open to human error.
The challenge
Live website menu
Price changes, supply-chain issues creating substitutes and frequent menu additions all change the menu output. Fluctuating prices constantly alter recipe profit margins and potentially the menu price. Substitute products make new costs, different nutrition and allergy information. Updating the menu on the website is a manual process and is reliant on the information provided being correct.
Constantly re-creating allergy sheets
Recreating a menu or slightly altering it requires creating a new allergen sheet. This takes time as Stange & Co. had to analyse each new recipe and requires knowledge of ingredients and their allergenic effects.
Costly amount of time spent pricing
Gross profit is a core responsibility of a Head Chef. Costing a recipe using spreadsheets is a laborious and highly manual process. Chefs can spend hours updating ingredient prices and then making this reflect in every recipe that uses the ingredient.
The solution
Integration with website menu
Kafoodle’s menus are populated with chosen recipes from the recipe database. As recipes are created with ingredient items, every time an ingredient is changed or substituted, the recipe is automatically updated and synced with the menu item descriptions. Prices, nutritional value and identified allergens are all updated in real-time from ingredient to menu.
Integrated ingredient and recipe database
The Kafoodle ingredient database contains accurate nutrition and allergy information regardless of the quantity used. The recipe will auto-calculate total macro values and update the datasheet. Elements of the information on the recipe sheet can be shown or hidden on digital menus or food labels.
Recipe costing calculator
Using Kafoodle to create recipes means that the costs of the ingredients are automatically combined to create a cost per serving, which can be effortlessly scaled up or down. Chefs can set target gross profit percentages, which are then compared with the total value of the plate cost and serving costs to calculate an actual GP figure and profit variance.
Chefs will receive a suggested price based on their target GP but can enter an actual price to create a final GP margin. If the actual GP is negative, the Kafoodle cost calculator alerts and highlights the figure to notify the user.
The result
Live menu for customers
Using Kafoodle’s API Connection, the website menu is now directly connected with the recipe database, which is managed by the back-of-house function and is consistently up-to-date. Now the front and back-of-house teams and customers have access to the same realt-time information
Rapid price increases won't result in profit performance being below the benchmarked percentage. Any nutrition or allergen information change will be instantly displayed, keeping the customer safe and the business fully compliant.
Described as a
"one-stop piece of software for our menus"
by Marketing Manager Zoe Murphy.
Instant system-wide allergy updates
As a fully integrated system, Kafoodle effortlessly updates the information at every stage, so what customers see is completely representative of the information in the system and changes seamlessly propagate throughout every feature of Kafoodle. Stange & Co. no longer has to manually go through spreadsheets to update documents whenever a recipe changes.
With one system now being used across their entire group of pub locations, there is total transparency, and their head office can manage all their sites which previously worked in isolation.
Executive Chef, Tim Watts told us, "The system gives us confidence in our compliance with current legislation as well as clear and accurate specifications for our recipes resulting in consistency of dishes. Transparent allergen information has also been a huge help to both the front-of-house and kitchen teams. "
Rapid costing with live data calculator
Stange & Co's Chefs now build all their recipes in Kafoodle by selecting ingredients from the database. Saving them vast amounts of time and they can access live datasheets. With the alert system and accurate ingredient prices, Chefs can ensure their recipes will create sufficient profit. As ingredients change almost daily, Stange & Co. no longer have to update prices manually. Instead, they alter the ingredient information and let Kafoodle update the rest, dramatically reducing time spent costing and vulnerability to errors.
"Being able to amend cost prices at head office level means that our head chefs can be more reactive to market prices."
Tim Watts says.
How will Kafoodle help achieve the future goals of the business?
Aware of the effects the food industry has on the planet, Stange & Co. are looking to go beyond the simple measures businesses can implement to reduce their environmental impact, such as reducing food waste. They have already started introducing Kafoodles carbon labelling feature to help guide menu creation and ingredient use. Using carbon labels also to help inform customers of sustainable recipe choices by adding them to food labels and menus.
Advice from Marketing Manager Zoe Murphy
"Always make a list of features that you need from a system. Without this, when approaching companies, the sales team will automatically tell you what they do, and you can easily get lost. Make sure you see the must-have features in action, then determine how you can grow into a software.
More information means more marketing
Whilst Stange & Co. use Kafoodle to manage ingredients to create peace of mind that they are compliant and use the costing calculator to ensure profit. They use the information to develop marketing material and identify recipes that appeal to specific customers with dietary and nutritional requirements, such as gluten-free, low-calorie and vegan-friendly.
The adoption of the live website menu is also a leading marketing example. Seventy-seven per cent of consumers view an online menu before arriving. The online menu attracts customers to Stange & Co’s pubs, and the fact it is accurate and up-to-date keeps customers returning.
