Wednesday, September 28, 2011

All In A Days Work: Standing By

One of the more mundane tasks of being involved in a FnB operations is that of preparation. Unlike your daily mum's cooking which is fast and nice - FnB outlets have to cope with demand - and the possibility of screwing up a recipe when requested to prepare it hundreds, if not thousands of times.


All of this happens, of course due to human limitations - and unfortunately, we have to put on our thinking caps and figure out ways around the problem by introducing this thing called quality control, and also ingredients preparations. When going behind the scenes, most operations will try to 'cook' their food as much as possible before putting it on the 'waiting table' for customers to sit down and eat.


From our end - this occurs mostly by the mixing of sauces, cutting of vegetables - marinating the meat and pre-cooking certain dishes. Tedious work especially when the reserve levels are low. Demand is quite variable when it comes to FnB - kinda tied to the mood swings of our guests perhaps - When they are in the eating mood - everybody pops up and downs an elephant and at other times - everybody is busy at the movies - quite unpredictable behaviour honestly. Though we do see recognizable patterns throughout the year as guests tend to increase in flow during the end of the year and drop significantly over the middle.


Preparation is indeed difficult work - and there are many unsung heroes who keep your FnB outlets operating on a day to day basis - granting every guest a meal, despite having thousands running through the store every day. Sometimes the little guys deserve a break too!