When it comes to managing food costs, there are a few areas that you can focus on to help keep to your budget. One of the first step is to balance your purchases to your menu. There are many chefs who focus on no waste cooking. Specifically, they try to utilize as much as they possibly can of anything they cook, from using bones to make stock and keeping a compost bins for vegetable scrapes among other practices. Another step is to focus on inventory management so that you reduce the amount of food that goes bad, by going to a first in first out food inventory management system.
Another way to manage food costs is to manage the amount of food you serve with each meal. Along with helping you to stay on budget, this practice will help you with inventory control and creating consistency in your menu so that customers have the same experience when ordering the same dish from your restaurant or cafe from visit to visit.
Practicing portion control is easier than you think with the right tools. Consistent, accurate portioning begins by having the commercial restaurant equipment and kitchen supplies on hand to help you, starting with the products below.
Food Scales: One of the best ways to get a precise measurement of foods, a kitchen scale is your best friend. Scales are great for measuring proteins, typically the most expensive ingredient in a meal. Additionally, if your protein portions are consistently sized, they will cook more consistently too, ensuring a delicious outcome. Portioning scales are also an excellent tool for measuring dry ingredients for recipes quickly and consistently. You will find both digital scales and manual or mechanical scales available for foodservice. Digital scales are highly popular because they provide quick, accurate and easy-to-read measurements. You will also find elements like a tare feature that simplifies complex measuring tasks. Many customers prefer to work with mechanical scales. Because these operate without a power source, they are portable and there’s no scrambling for a battery or outlet in order to do your work. If you know how to operate a manual scale, they are also highly accurate. There are even some manual scales that are completely washable and can go in a pot sink or dishwasher.
Measuring Cups and Scoops: Along with scales, measuring cups are an important portion control tool. Depending on the amount of people you’re preparing to serve, you’ll need a variety of sizes of measuring cups and a set is a good way to start. Additionally, measuring cups come in a variety of materials including stainless steel, aluminum, and polycarbonate which is typically clear making it easy to see the amount of product being measure easily.
Portion Utensils: Portion servers including dishers, spoodles or portion servers, and even ladles, can be highly useful portion control utensils. All these utensils come in specific capacities which is usually assuming the bowl of the item is filled to the top, but not overflowing. Using a server that’s portioned to 8 oz. to serve vegetables from a steam table pan will be much more accurate if the server is using a portion control ladle instead of a set of tongs and grabbing a ‘portion’. Our most popular line of portion control servers are the Rite Size Servers. These servers are available with a round or square bowl and with a solid or perforated bowl. They are great for portioning out 6 or 8 oz. of vegetables, 2 oz. of scrambled eggs or any foods that you may portion from a container. For heavier or stickier foods, a disher is the answer.
With these different tools at the ready, you should be able to adhere to portioning guidelines and improve the consistency of meal items and simplify preparation by having the same size portions every time.
