What is a restaurant's supply chain like?
The management of the restaurant supply chain it is an essential process, since every day the sector is becoming more competitive. The key to success in your business is the restaurant logistics, since it depends on it the ability to maintain a stable supply chain and to innovate solutions to build its competitive advantage.
You can't forget that the restaurant industry is constantly changing and evolving with rapid consumer trends. That's why one of your priorities as a restaurant owner or manager should be to monitor these trends, analyze logistics and supply chain performance and optimize it according to demand and market changes.
Learn in this post about the importance of a restaurant's supply chain and how it works to optimize your restaurant's resources.
What is a restaurant's supply chain?
Knowing what the supply chain is and what are the stages that make it up allows you to improve processes to save time and money.
Supply chain management is a holistic term that describes the various stages a product or service goes through before it finally reaches the end user. It includes activities such as purchasing and transportation, processes such as product lifecycle management and customer service management.
In essence, it's an attempt to make the creation of products or services more efficient. A food supply chain includes all the processes that indicate how food grown on a farm reaches the table. This includes the production, administration, use and rejection of food products.
Importance of logistics and supply chain in a restaurant
In general, we could say that the supply chain refers to the complete flow that a product goes through from the production stage to its sale.
Logistics, on the other hand, is part of the supply chain and is the set of organizational and strategic activities launched by a company to manage material flows, the storage of raw materials and the distribution of its products.
Keeping the supply chain under control ensures that it works efficiently. This can mean lower costs and higher revenues.
Additionally, using food management to organize and monitor all areas of the supply chain can help mitigate food loss and waste.
Food management involves overseeing the supply chain to ensure the quality, taste, and safety of all items sold.
The 4 Stages of the Food Supply Chain
These are the stages a restaurant's supply chain goes through:
Procurement
During this stage of the supply chain, it is important to plan well and coordinate the availability of raw materials, their quantity, and the quality and freshness of the food to be processed.
To optimize this stage:
- Keep a constant flow of supplies: lGood relationships with restaurant supply suppliers guarantee you a constant flow of supplies.
- Develop a policy for purchasing supplies: apply standardized policies to your purchasing processes to maintain control of them and adapt them to the demands of your customers.
- Identify the products with the highest to lowest turnover: Depending on the demand for your dishes, you can easily identify which products you should supply most often.
Storage and processing
This phase includes all processes related to the Storage. You must keep your raw materials in such a way that they maintain their quality.
The process of creating your dishes is also involved in this phase. That is, the processes necessary to bring all the products on your menu to your customer.
The improvement of processes in this phase makes the difference in being effective in managing the restaurant. To achieve this:
- Set up the storage and kitchen areas: well-located and equipped kitchen and storage areas ensure quality and efficiency. Not only in the taste of the dishes, but also in the customer service.
- Take into account the temperature of the food: to maintain the quality of the dishes in your restaurant, all ingredients must be stored at the correct temperature for preservation.
- Defines general guidelines for preparing dishes: establishes the way in which each dish is going to be prepared, as well as the quantities needed to make it. In this way, errors when preparing dishes are minimized and the flavor that distinguishes them is standardized and maintained.
Distribution
For the distribution and delivery of your dishes, you must implement in-restaurant and home delivery strategies. To do this:
- Strategically delimits the office area: this way you speed up the service and reduce the waiting time of your customers
- Prepare home order distribution: employs a team dedicated only to home deliveries, so as not to affect salon distribution.
- Manage last-mile logistics with technology: Applying technology for the last mile significantly improves the customer experience. Platforms such as Picker guarantee on-time deliveries without affecting the quality of your dishes while on the move.
Reverse logistics
Implementing reverse logistics in your restaurant is important because it streamlines the disposal of materials and makes the organization more sustainable.
For adequate reverse logistics in your restaurant:
- Classify and organize all the waste in your restaurant: install selective collection points in as many places as possible within the restaurant. Organic waste that returns from dishes must be released separately from cans, glasses, papers, etc.
- Make alliances for the use of waste: you can get companies that are willing to pay for waste, but if you can get handlers to pick it up for free, that helps a lot.
- Analyze how your restaurant can be eco-efficient: Find a way to make the most of your restaurant's waste organic matter. Likewise recycle cans, glass, paper, etc.
There is an enormous range of possibilities for inserting restaurant waste into reverse logistics. By doing so, the restaurant can be eco-efficient and have a minimum negative impact on the environment.
Example of a restaurant supply chain
A supply chain is the network between your restaurant, suppliers, distributors and customers.
This network is used to get your dishes to a customer. For example, a restaurant's supply chain can be broken down like this:
- The farmer who supplies fresh vegetables.
- The supplier who buys from the farmer and takes him to the restaurant.
- The chef who makes dishes with those products.
- The waiter who distributes it to customers in the restaurant.
- The delivery person who delivers the order to your home
3 Tips to Save Time and Money on Supplies for Your Restaurant
Apply these tips to your restaurant and make the most of them:
1. Consolidate your suppliers and make the most of them: In the restaurant business, it is necessary to find the right suppliers to maintain quality and efficiency. In addition, it's important to use technology that helps onboard and manage suppliers based on quality and efficiency.
2. Order in bulk and get discounts: you get better prices if you buy larger quantities. This allows you to carry out promotions and attract more customers.
3. Automate the most frequent purchases: Restaurant supplies generally maintain the same trend for a certain period of time. This allows you to automate your purchases and save time, which you can spend on other, more necessary tasks.
Why is Picker the ally you need in your restaurant?
Running a restaurant isn't easy. If we look at the businesses in this field that have really worked, achieving their ideal and growing day by day, we will see that those who invest in marketing for restaurants today obtain the best results.
But to achieve these results, it is also necessary to partner with the right companies. And Picker is one of them. At Picker, we help you to push your restaurant to the maximum and that your customers have a great experience.
With us you can provide your customers with a real tracking experience, improving the shopping experience and increasing their trust in your brand.
Integrate easily with Picker and every order you receive will be sent with special tracking for each customer.
Conclusions
Good supply chain management will give your restaurant a competitive advantage. It will also help you reduce costs and increase revenues, in addition to allowing the planned purchase of supplies and the forecasting of patterns in the Inventory of your restaurant.
Don't forget that changing consumer habits also have a direct impact on a restaurant's supply chain. That's why to keep it running in a healthy and trouble-free manner, it's essential to observe market trends and the behavior of your customers.
That's why knowing the operation of your restaurant's supply chain helps you optimize processes and increase the profitability of your business.
