What is Portion Control in Foodservice?
Portion control is the establishment of standard sized portions for all your menu items and then following those standards in the preparation ad serving of meals. As an example, if you offer spaghetti and meatballs as a dish on your menu, the portion may be 1-1/2 cups of cooked spaghetti, two meatballs at 2 ounces each and ¾ cup of marinara sauce. This is a generous portion but it is quite common in many restaurants. With the ingredient quantities measured for an individual serving, you can now easily calculate the amount of each ingredient needed to prepare 500 servings. Shopping and budgeting are now easier with the guess work removed, as is planning your menu. Portion control is the next step in the process because without it, all your planning measuring will be wasted.
Portion control is the process of serving the menu items in the planned portion sizes. Portion control is not limiting the amount of food being served to measure calories, as we noted, this is a generous portion size, one any restaurant patron would find satisfying. Portion control for foodservice is about planning the size for all your menu options and then accurately serving the specified portion every time that menu item is prepared. For this example, it translates to making sure that each meatball is 2 ounces, and each serving of pasta is 1-1/2 cups with ¾ cup of sauce.
Fight Inconsistent Portions
One of the reasons people like to visit chain restaurants when they travel is that they know that they will get the same meal in Cheyenne, WY as they would in Newark, NJ if they are going to the same restaurant. Consistency is important when you are delivering on a promised standard. For the independent restaurant, consistent portions are important so that when your customer comes in to order their favorite dish, it is the same every time. It would be disappointing to get one meatball with your spaghetti when the reason it was your favorite was that it came with three meatballs. To add insult to injury, imagine if you looked at the next table, or even at your dinning companion, and they had three meatballs.
Portion Control to Avoid Food Loss
If you know that you have averaged serving 500 plates of spaghetti on Tuesday for the last three months, then you will buy prepare ingredients for 500 portions. This week you have a different chef than you usually do and they are a little heavy handed so that everyone gets about 10% more than the standard serving. At the end of the night there will be 49 to 50 customers who go without their favorite meal. Additionally, you won’t collect the ticket for those meals. If your chef serves less than the standard portion, it is likely you will be throwing out some of your meals.
What are the best tools in the kitchen to keep your portion sizes consistent?
Portion Scales – Portion scales can be used with all types of dry ingredients, meats, breads even pastas. There are a wide variety of scales available but the digital scales are the easiest for measuring small quantities accurately.
Portion Utensils – from dishers to spoodles, portion utensils are designed to serve a certain amount of a menu item. A 2 oz. portion of eggs can be dished out with a 2 oz portion server. For sticky items, like mashed potatoes, a disher can be used like the 6 oz. exact capacity Rite-Size Disher.
Batter Dispensers – These are great tools for portioning out any types of batter, from muffins to pancakes. They work well with any viscous liquid.
There are a wide variety of tools available to ensure that you can control portion sizes and provide consistent servings with every meal.
