Every Food & Beverage operation has different factors that impact its business levels, and with profit margins being so slim, there is little room for error. Wouldn’t it be great to know exactly how much business is coming in? You would always schedule the right number of staff and order the right amount of food. Your customers would never wait, servers and cooks would be productive, and there would be no food waste.
Doesn’t that sound like the perfect world? If your food and beverage operation runs this way, then there is no need to read on. However, most restaurants find themselves reacting to the business on a daily basis leading to poor or inconsistent customer service, frustrated employees being overworked or sent home early, and food waste. It doesn’t need to be this way! By creating an effective forecast, you can take out some of the guesswork and maximize your profit.
There are so many examples of poor planning in the food and beverage industry. Everything from the restaurant manager texting their employees at 11:00 PM at night to tell them what time they’re working the next day or if they’re working at all to a restaurant running out of food midway through service because they didn’t think it would be that busy.