Planning And Costing Menus: Skills And Knowledge Required

Critical thinking to evaluate the food service preferences of the customer profile and plan menus to meet those preferences

This unit describes the performance outcomes, skills and knowledge required to plan and cost basic menus for dishes or food product ranges for any type of cuisine or food service style. It requires the ability to identify customer preferences, plan menus to meet customer and business needs, cost menus and evaluate their success.

Critical thinking to evaluate the food service preferences of the customer profile and plan menus to meet those preferences  literacy to:

• read and interpret information on customer profiles and preferences owrite creatively expressed menus and product descriptions to promote sales numeracy to:

• determine portion sizes and portion yield from ingredients ocalculate the cost of producing dishes for menus o calculate mark-ups and selling price for profitability

Planning and organising to access and sort all information required for menu planning and to coordinate a menu development process  problem-solving to identify unprofitable menu items and adjust menus to include high yield dishes  technology to use computers and software programs to cost and document menus

sources of information on current customer profile and food preferences service style and cuisine costs of supply for ingredients methods and formulas for calculating portion yields and costs from raw ingredients including: butcher’s test standard measures standard yield tests

Hospitality and catering industry desired profit margins, mark-up procedures and rates different types and styles of menus for dishes or food production ranges for different types of food outlets

Influence of seasonal products and commodities on menu content naming conventions and culinary terms for a variety of cuisines formats for and inclusions of menus presented to customers methods of assessing the popularity of menu items including the use of:

Customer surveys popularity index sales data.

There are three forms of assessment for this unit. 

Each assignment consists of a number of different questions and activities. Some activities are to be completed in class, whilst others consist of tasks or research activities, which can be done at the students’, own time.  

All parts of each assignment must be completed. A satisfactory result must be achieved for each. Answer sheets have been provided. A Marking Guide is used to record each student’s outcome. If students fail to achieve a satisfactory outcome, they may be provided with the opportunity to resubmit.

Students will be advised when and where each assignment is to be completed.

All assignments have to be submitted to the trainer/assessor accompanied with an assignment cover sheet. 

Comprised of a total of 6 components all of which must be completed

Comprised of a total of 8 short answer, 10 True or False and 10 multiple choice

The questions in the written tests will test the knowledge of the student in the unit based on the theory material taught in class. The tests will consist of memory re-call questions, problem solving questions and numeracy skills-based questions. Students will be given 1 hour and thirty minutes to complete each written test. 

Literacy to read and interpret information on customer profiles and preferences and write creatively expressed menus and product descriptions to promote sales

The assessment result will be given as either:

• S – Satisfactory
• NS – Not Satisfactory – requires re-assessment

Students will be awarded C = Competent on completion of the unit when satisfied that the student has completed all assessments and has provided the appropriate evidence required to meet all criteria. If the student fails to meet this requirement they will receive NYC = Not Yet Competent and will be eligible to be re-assessed.

To be deemed competent in this unit, students must achieve satisfactory outcomes in all forms of assessment

Remember to make adjustment in the assessment methods for any learners with special needs, particularly those with language and literacy requirement

Unit of competence	Assessment number	Assessment type	Scheduled week
SITHKOP302 Plan and cost basic menus	Assignment 1	Assessment	Week 3
Assignment 2	Project	Week 4
Assessment 3	Written test	Week 5

This activity is based on the planning of menus and ensuring these menus meet customer and establishment requirements. Each activity needs to be completed in class. 

You are opening a restaurant in the QVB building and need to establish customer’s needs and requirements. Describe how you will identify the needs of your customers. 

 In order to identify the needs of the customers a survey can be conducted on the prospective customers in the area. The survey shall consists of questions such as the food preferences of customers, beverages etc.  The needs of the customer can also be identified by evaluating the nearby restaurants and their performance (Ickman et al. 2016). The analysis of the competitors is an important method that helps in identifying the needs of the customer.

Below are some examples of typical target markets often found in the hospitality industry. For each provide your thoughts on what their requirements may be. Also provide suggestions for suitable menu styles that could be used for these particular market groups.

Business people on lunch break in CBD: 

 There are some specific target markets in hospitality industry which are as following:

• Business people on lunch break in CBD
• Tourist visiting South Bank in Melbourne:
• Couples having dinner on Valentine’s Day:

Business people on lunch break in CBD 

Since the business people are expected to conduct business meetings and other important sessions in the restaurant the management must ensure that the foods and beverages are delivered to the business people on time and in accordance with the required quality. Apart from that the availability hall room will be helpful for the business people to hold meetings and other important business sessions (Mallen and Adams 2017).

Tourist visiting South Bank in Melbourne: 

 Tourists shall be provided with information about the city and the various tourists’ spots in the city along with top quality foods. Since the tourists are expected stay in particular hotels and the restaurant must provide top quality hospitality services to the tourists. The tourists are generally uncomfortable with the language and accent of Australia thus, the restaurant staffs and management should specifically take into consideration this aspect (Jones 2014). Making the tourists feel comfortable and providing top quality hospitability services to them are must.       

Numeracy to determine portion sizes and portion yield from ingredients, calculate the cost of producing dishes for menus, and calculate mark-ups and selling price for profitability

Couples having dinner on Valentines Day: 

Couples: Couples in addition to top quality foods require privacy thus, providing privacy and romantic environment to the couples are necessary. Creating an environment of romance in the air will be made possible with the use of music and colours will be important (Stadtler 2015). Along with foods and beverages availability of gifts and accessories will help the couples to enjoy quality time in the restaurant.          

You operate a successful restaurant and you need information on what main course item on your current menu is most popular. Calculate the popularity index for the menu items below.

Menu item	Total sales per item	Popularity index	Popularity index (%)
Baby Barramundi	67	0.16067146	16.06715
Stuffed Calamari tube	38	0.0911271	9.11271
Grilled Fillet steak	126	0.30215827	30.21583
Spinach & Ricotta Cannelloni	82	0.19664269	19.66427
Roast Lamb rack	104	0.24940048	24.94005
Total	417

This activity involves calculating and setting production and selling costs for menu items.  

1. You must calculate the production cost of the recipe below and then answer the following questions based on your calculation.  

Recipe yield: 5 portions
Dish name: Beef fillet with Mash potato and Port Jus lie Portion size:
Fillet:     220gm (raw weight)
Mash potatoes:   60gm
Jus lie     80ml
INGREDIENT	UNIT COST	AMOUNT	UNIT	ACTUAL COST
Beef fillet steak	$54.32	1.325	Kg	$71.97
Olive oil	$47.97	0.055	Lt	$2.64
Sea salt	$112.31	0.004	Kg	$0.45
Black peppercorns	$62.25	0.01	Kg	$0.62
Washed potato	$3.02	0.5	Kg	$1.51
Cream	$2.24	0.11	Lt	$0.25
Milk	$1.87	0.1	Lt	$0.19
Butter	$3.14	0.24	Kg	$0.75
Dijon mustard	$10.49	0.01	Kg	$0.10
Veal bones	$4.12	1.4	Kg	$5.77
Carrot	$1.48	0.35	Kg	$0.52
Celery	$2.32	0.2	Kg	$0.46
Onion	$1.98	0.3	Kg	$0.59
Bay leaves	$67.21	0.003	Kg	$0.20
Water	$0.18	10	Lt	$1.80
Port	$43.16	0.5	Lt	$21.58
Total:				$109.41

1. Using your total production cost calculate the individual portion cost for this recipe.  

Particulars	Amount
5 portions	$109.41
Individual portion cost	$21.88

1. If the food cost percentage for this establishment is 36% calculate the selling cost for one portion of this dish.  

If the food cost is 36% then the selling price of one portion of this dish will be as following:

If the food cost is 36% then
Individual portion cost	$21.88
Selling price	$60.78

1. Using the information provided calculate the wastage percentage from the beef fillet.

 The quantity of Beef fillet streak 1.325 Kg is required for 5 portions. Since each portion consists of 220 gm. thus, the total quantity for 5 complete portions (220 gm. X 5)= 1100 gm. However, the quantity of beef fillet streak used is 1.325 Kg. thus, the waste (1.325 Kg – 1.1 Kg.) = 225 gm.

Thus, the wastage percentage is 16.98%.   

For each of the following topics describe what they are and how they will impact on cost control in catering establishments. 

1. Production schedules

Production schedules are the statements which contain all necessary information about the items to be produced. These include the quantity of production to be made, the raw materials and other items necessary to produce these items along with processes to be used for the production (Stadtler 2015).   

 The impact on cost control in catering establishments are as following:

1. The wastages will be reduced as the production schedules will have all information about the required quantity of various materials for production.
2. The production process will be effective and efficient.

• The wastage of food will also be reduced as the quantity of production will be in accordance with the requirements of the catering establishments (Yago and Alcover 2016).

1. Proper planning will help the organization to reduce overall cost of production.

1. Sales analysis:

 Sales analysis is the process in which the various aspects of sales are analysed to find out the sales pattern.

 The impact on cost control in catering establishments are as following:

1. The sales analysis will help us to assess the expected sales.
2. On the basis of sales expectations the sales productions can be made to reduce the amount of wastage (Fleischmann et al. 2015). 

1. Portion Control:

 Portion control is the process to control the cooking. The portion control will help the restaurant to enhance the quality of foods manufactured by the organization.

 The impact on cost control in catering establishments are as following:

1. The portion control will help the catering establishments to prepare top quality food items without wasting any resources (Price and Nelson 2018).
2. The quality of food will be very good.

Complete the following 2 yield tests; the non-shaded cells must be filled in with the correct answers

Butchering test
Details	Weight Kg	Weight %	Market value per Kg	Total value	Cost per Kg	Cost factor
Total weight	24.75	100		228.9375	9.25
Trimmed weight	21.285	86
Loss in trimmings	3.465	14	2.85	9.87525
Cooked weight		0
Loss in cooking		0
Bones and trim		0
Saleable weight	21.285	86		319.275	15	Market value per Kg
Cooking loss and labour test
Details	Weight Kgs.	Weight %	Market value per Kg	Total value	Cost per Kg	Cost factor
Total weight	16.4	100		$92.50	$5.64
Trimmed weight	14.268	87
Loss in trimmings	2.132	13
Cooked weight	12.792	78
Loss in cooking	1.476	9
Bones and trim	1.148	7
saleable weight	11.644	71		$116.44	$10.00	Market value per Kg
Labour	($6.88 per 1/2 hour)
. + Labour				6.88	0.59086225	Market value per Kg

Menu style	Description
A la carte	Dishes prepared to order and individually priced.
Regular menu	A meal with no or limited choice at a fixed price.
Function menu	Banquet menus, also known as function or set menus. They are usually menus with limited choices and at fixed prices (Akutagawa and Myslinski 2015).
Carte du jour	Menu items or dishes, which is different for each day during a cycle and repeats. Such menus are usually found in institutional facilities like school and hospital cafeterias. Their aim is to avoid boredom, and they can run from one week to one month (Li et al. 2015).
Buffet	Consisting of several dishes usually all displayed together on a counter from which guests serve themselves.
Complete menu	Usually has 16 courses, it comprises of hors d’oeuvre, soup, eggs, rice & pasta, fish, meat, sorbet, roast dish, vegetables, salad, sweets, savoury (i.e. cheese), fresh fruits & nuts, tea or coffee with petits fours (Srinivasa Rao et al. 2015)
Sample menu	Appreciative tasting of various foods and is likely to involve sampling small portions of all of a chef’s signature dishes in one sitting. Usually consisting of eight or more courses, which usually are accompanied by a matching wine degustation, which complements each dish (Chakravarty et al. 2017).

You are required to design a function menu for an upcoming function to be held at a local Function Centre in your area. A total of 80 guests have confirmed they will attend this function. The function will have a time frame of 5 hours, from the time of arrival of the guests until the end of the function. 

Planning and organizing to access and sort all information required for menu planning and to coordinate a menu development process

You must choose a customer profile for the function, from one or a combination of the following:

Buying power

Gender

Social background Cultural background Income levels.

You will also need to come up with an appropriate food preference for the function from one or a combination of the following:

Contemporary eating habits

Cultural and ethnic influences

Popular menu items

Quick service foods

Seasonal dishes

Variety of food products.

Here are some examples of themes that could be used or you can also discuss with your trainer if you want to come up with one of your own.  

Wedding        

Birthday

Family Reunion

Conference    

Anniversary

You will need to design a Table d’hôte menu, taking in to account all the considerations of the Hospitality Industry in regards to the enterprise standards. The menu will consist of 3 courses with a choice of 2 items per course. Entrée

The menu will need to include “culinary balance” and any traditional or modern appropriate garnishes, with a food cost percentage of 30%.

A menu card will need to be produced for this function, remember the menu style and layout that has been requested. As part of the requirements of the function centre you will need to produce some information for the catering staff to use to help them with the purchasing of the foods stuffs required. The following will need to be organised well before the function can actually commence:

1. You must present a balancedmenu with a selected theme, food preference and customer profile of the client.
2. The menu will need to be appropriate for your customer base and customer’s food preference and descriptive writing should be used with to ensure the customer fully understands the menu offered.
3. A filled in Standard Recipe Card(SRC) for all menu items, filled out correctly. You may use the template below or the excel file from the blackboard. 
4. The menu will need to pay attention to “balance” including any traditional garnishes and with a food cost percentage of 30%- See example below “Food Cost percentage and setting the Sales Price” or you can use the excel file from the blackboard 
5. Menus must be written using words that appeal to the customer base and fit with your business service style using the correct names for the style of cuisine.
6. You will need create a customer feedback template form

The customer profile for the function:

Profile age: All guests will be above the age of 18.

Buying power: The guests have significant buying power.

Gender: The guests will include both male and female.

Culture and ethnic influence: Since all the guests are from the city of Melbourne there is no culture or ethnic influence on the food preferences except that of domestic preference.

Popular menu items: Beef fillet stick and beef meat are especially popular with the guests.

Variety of food products: The variety will improve the guests experience in the function.

Themes:

The theme of the function is business conference. A business conference shall be held at the function centre which will host 80 business executives from all over the city of Melbourne. Thus, the menu of the function shall be decided keeping in mind that the function is mainly for the business purpose.     

There will be a business conference in APC Centre of Melbourne which will be graced by top 80 executives from all over the city of Melbourne. Taking into consideration the importance of conference the caterer who has been assigned the responsibility to provide the catering services has decided to provide balanced menu to the 80 guests to ensure that the guests are happy and satisfied with the quality of foods and hospitality services. The whole function will be completed within 5 hours. The foods will be served throughout the 5 hours to the guests.    

Problem-solving to identify unprofitable menu items and adjust menus to include high yield dishes

The balanced menu:

The balanced menu will consists of three courses and each courses will have 2 items. The menu here has been decided taking into consideration that the function is a business conference that will be attended by 80 business executives who all have significant buying power. Let us discuss the balance menu in detail here.  

Entrée:

1. Fried prawns: At the beginning the guests shall be served with fried prawns. Considering the lightness of the item it will set the right tone for the other items in the menu.    
2. Smothered Pork Chops: Along with secret beef ingredients smother pork chops shall be provided as the second item in the entrée.  

Main:

1. Beef Fillet Stick with smashed potato: Beef stick fillet will be provided along with smashed potato to ensure that the guests have their stomach full after the function.
2. Italian Broccoli and Solomon bake: For those guests who will avoid taking beef in the main course as they have already consumed beef in the entrée will have the option to take Italian Broccoli and Solomon bake.  

Dessert:

1. Butter-scotch ice cream: Butter scotch ice-cream shall be served to the guests at the end of main course.      
2. Passion Fruit Vanilla Slice:

Menu card:

Entrée	I. Fried prawns (Australian banana Prawns, rice flour, corn flour, salt flakes, chilli powder, egg white, mayonnaise, garlic cloves, peanut and vegetable oil) II. Smothered Pork Chops (Pork, oil)
Main	I. Beef fillet stick with smashed potato (Beef) II. Italian Broccoli and Solomon bake (Broccoli, Solmon)
Dessert	I. Butter-scotch ice-cream (ice cream, scotch) II. Passion Fruit Vanilla slice (Fruit, Vanilla Slice)

 

Reference

Akutagawa, C.E. and Myslinski, L.J., 2015. Social networking event planning. U.S. Patent Application 14/631,279.

Brailsford, S., Churilov, L. and Dangerfield, B. eds., 2014. Discrete-event simulation and system dynamics for management decision making. John Wiley & Sons.

Chakravarty, D., Antony, J.M., Choudhary, U., Capuano, D. and Mallapragada, S.P., Oracle International Corp, 2017. Event-driven customizable automated workflows for incident remediation. U.S. Patent 9,715,675.

Chrysoulakis, N., Feigenwinter, C., Triantakonstantis, D., Penyevskiy, I., Tal, A., Parlow, E., Fleishman, G., Düzgün, S., Esch, T. and Marconcini, M., 2014. A conceptual list of indicators for urban planning and management based on earth observation. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 3(3), pp.980-1002.

Cousins, J., Lillicrap, D. and Weekes, S., 2014. Food and beverage service. Hachette UK.

Fleischmann, B., Meyr, H. and Wagner, M., 2015. Advanced planning. In Supply chain management and advanced planning (pp. 71-95). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Goossen, E., Gerlock, D.L. and Goossen, K., Honeywell International Inc, 2017. Response planning and execution aiding system and method. U.S. Patent 9,824,315.

Heizer, J., 2016. Operations Management, 11/e. Pearson Education India.

Ickman, S., Cheng, L., MacLaurin, M.B., Colando, C.J., Anderson, E.S. and Raskino, D.A., Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC, 2016. Event planning within social networks. U.S. Patent 9,253,615.

Jones, M., 2014. Sustainable event management: A practical guide. Routledge.

Jung, T., Ineson, E.M., Kim, M. and Yap, M.H., 2015. Influence of festival attribute qualities on Slow Food tourists’ experience, satisfaction level and revisit intention: The case of the Mold Food and Drink Festival. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 21(3), pp.277-288.

Li, X., Hsu, C.H. and Lawton, L.J., 2015. Understanding residents’ perception changes toward a mega-event through a dual-theory lens. Journal of Travel Research, 54(3), pp.396-410.

Mallen, C. and Adams, L.J. eds., 2017. Event Management in Sport, Recreation and Tourism: Theoretical and Practical Dimensions. Taylor & Francis.

Matthews, D., 2015. Special event production: The resources. Routledge.

O’sullivan, P.J., Zimmet, C.S., Chakra, A., Farrell, C. and Harpur, L., International Business Machines Corp, 2014. Application of cost constraints in event scheduling. U.S. Patent 8,788,309.

Price, K.M. and Nelson, K.L., 2018. Planning effective instruction: Diversity responsive methods and management. Cengage Learning.

Psyllidis, A., Bozzon, A., Bocconi, S. and Bolivar, C.T., 2015, July. A platform for urban analytics and semantic data integration in city planning. In International Conference on Computer-Aided Architectural Design Futures (pp. 21-36). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Singh, D.A., 2014. Effective management of long-term care facilities. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Sporre, C.M., Jonsson, I.M. and Pipping Ekström, M., 2015. The complexity of making a conscious meal: A concept for development and education. Journal of culinary science & technology, 13(3), pp.263-285.

Srinivasa Rao, A.B., Kumar, P.M. and Aithal, P.S., 2015. Strategic Planning in Higher Education Institutions: A Case Study of SIMS-VISION 2025.

Stadtler, H., 2015. Supply chain management: An overview. In Supply chain management and advanced planning (pp. 3-28). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Tomkins, A., Ravikumar, S., Agarwal, S., Bo, P.A.N.G. and Li, M.Y., Google LLC, 2018. Associating one or more terms in a message trail with a task entry. U.S. Patent 9,875,233.

Van der Wagen, L. and Goonetilleke, A., 2015. Hospitality Management, Strategy and Operations. Pearson Higher Education AU.

Yago, M. and Alcover, S., 2016. Selecting statistical procedures for quality control planning based on risk management. Clinical chemistry, 62(7), pp.959-965.