Make Haste to not Waste

Make Haste to not Waste  – by Andrew Freeman

With higher food and labor costs continuing to impact restaurants, maintaining profitability is at the top of most restaurateurs minds.  At the same time, highly educated restaurant guests require new and interesting items to drive trial.  A recent article in Nation’s Restaurant News  offered some practical advice for how to maintain the balance between fresh and profitable menus.  Yours truly was cited as a source, so of course I’m a bit biased as to the quality of advice!  Sometimes restaurateurs find themselves being pulled in multiple directions when the trend requires more expensive ingredients that don’t translate into higher sales.  However, as we predicted in this our 2016 Trend Report, many chefs are finding the balance by turning typically discarded items (think carrot greens or other vegetable “waste”) into truly delicious creations.  Americans used to consider products made from lesser known cuts of meat or vegetable parts to be unappealing or lower quality.  Thankfully that’s changing and opening up a whole new path for chefs to explore.