Added Value-or Not?

Value equation important when weighing convenience vs labor

By Barbara Sullivan, Special to R&I -- Restaurants & Institutions, 5/1/2004

In-house preparation, though labor-intensive, can differentiate an operation from its competitors.

It meant a savings of only 13 cents a meal, but that 13 cents was critical to Peggy Lawrence, who is responsible for 2.4 million meals a year in her job as director of food services for Rockdale County Public Schools in Conyers, Ga.

The savings came from eliminating convenient frozen biscuits at lunch and instead serving scratch-made rolls. It was a traumatic change for the school district. Southerners, even kids, expect their biscuits. The foodservice staff also was used to the ease of heating the frozen biscuits, and had to be trained in the art of baking.

“We were using a lot of convenience products as labor-saving menu items,” Lawrence says. “But the cost of [convenience] food was high and labor costs were going up too. I didn’t want to cut labor, so I made the decision.”

There’s often a fine line between the additional expense of using prepared foods that eliminate some of the labor costs and the price of making everything in-house, from scratch. How do operators balance the cost differences? And, just as importantly, how do they balance quality?

Do you buy chopped onions or an onion-chopper for the kitchen? Are precooked marinated chicken breasts that only need reheating a good alternative to labor-intensive house-roasted birds, or do they sacrifice quality?

Diminishing returns
“Value added” often is tough to quantify in dollars and cents, according to John Coletta, executive chef at Carlucci, a fine-dining restaurant in Downers Grove, Ill.

“You can do 70%, 80% or 90% [of food preparation] internally, you monitor in a 30-day window but you get your mix on a daily basis,” he says. “When we have fresh spring peas, rather than have someone on our staff clean them and take the peas out of the pods, we order them already shelled and cleaned. But if you get the whole dish prepared—minted spring pea ravioli, for example—you’ve lost your identity. You’re like the guy down the street. No value there.”

Operators must weigh any loss of quality in a decision to use prepared convenience products.

It’s because she doesn’t want to be like the operator down the street that’s prompting Patti Dollarhide to consider using upscale prepared potato risotto for her catering business. She’s director of nutritional services for Via Christi Regional Medical Center, with five campuses in Wichita, Kan.

“We conduct educational programs here at the center, and we’re trying to get presenters to order food from us rather than bringing in their own,” she says. “When I saw these potatoes, I thought it would be the type of upscale menu item that presenters would not normally have.”

Dollarhide hasn’t yet priced out the product, but believes her entire medical system, which feeds about 6,000 people a day, has a good mix of convenience and in-house preparation. Precooked bacon was used briefly, “but we realized the sacrifice in quality wasn’t worth the time saved.” Sheet cakes come frozen, but staff prepares the decoration.

“The tradeoff in using prepared foods is supposed to be labor, but sometimes you’re trading off quality,” she explains. “It’s important to have a scientific process, to conduct evaluations that determine what real value for both consumer and operator is. That’s what we’re trying to develop now.”

One more thing: The aroma from house-made rolls that wafts through Rockdale County schools is unbelievably delicious, Lawrence says. It’s an added value she never considered while thinking about those 13 cents.

Barbara Sullivan is a Chicago-based freelance writer.