We hope you had a fun-filled Easter holiday with delicious food and happy customers! As the Easter rush subsides, it’s the perfect time to reflect on your menu’s performance and explore ways to maximize its profitability. In this week’s edition of the Vendease Digest,, we’re whipping up a fresh batch of knowledge on menu engineering, a powerful tool to help your business grow.
What is menu engineering?
Think of your menu as a strategic roadmap to your business’ success. Menu engineering is the art and science of analysing your menu’s profitability and strategically designing it to increase revenue.
A well-engineered menu boosts profits by highlighting high-margin dishes and encouraging customers to choose them. It also minimizes food waste by focusing on popular items and strategically pricing less-popular ones. Overall, it will cater to the diverse preferences of your customers by offering a balanced selection of dishes with varying profitability. It’s a win-win for everyone, so here are a few best practices to get you started with menu engineering.
Analyse the profitability of your menu items
In a previous edition of the Vendease Digest, we shared tips on how to determine the cost price of your menu items. Just like any other product, the cost price subtracted from the selling price gives you the profit of the dish. More profitable dishes should take precedence over others in your menu engineering process.
Create a well-designed menu
A menu should easily guide your customers through their dining experience. That’s why it’s a common practice to arrange menu items in order of eating. For instance, on a one-page menu, appetisers are typically placed at the top, followed by main dishes, desserts and drinks.
To guide your customers to the most profitable menu items, always list the most profitable dishes within a category first. You can also display these items in highlighted text or a brighter colour, so that they stand out and your customers see them first.
Include menu modifiers
A great example of a menu modifier is an ‘add protein’ or ‘extras’ section. Also ensure that the prices of these modifiers are low relative to that of the full dishes, and that they are reasonably profitable. This is an extremely easy way to increase your profits and add some revenue to your bottom line.
Limit menu items
There are two major reasons why you shouldn’t include too many options in your menu.
- Customers may be overwhelmed by too many choices.
- The amount and cost of ingredients and supplies will increase in the long run.
It’s much better to limit the options on your menu to a few profitable options. This helps to make your customer’s choice easier and reduces the amount of ingredients you have to stock up on.
Are you ready to try out these menu engineering tips? Start by analyzing the profitability of your menu. With our transparent pricing and invoice feature, you can view the current and past prices of your favorite supplies on Vendease.
Hi Koko,
I saw a post from Vendease recently about how neglecting to establish clear procurement policies and procedures is a huge mistake to make as a restaurant owner. How can I establish these policies? I own a small restaurant and majorly handle procurement with the restaurant manager. What can I do to make things more seamless?
Hi Bode,
You’re right. Neglecting these policies is a huge mistake. A great place to start is by making sure all your procurement is done on Vendease. Not only do we have the best prices, but you can have another user profile under your restaurant’s account for your manager to also handle procurement from time to time. The invoices feature will also help you keep track of all your purchases and prices. There are some other processes you will need to put in place, so stay tuned for the next edition of this digest for more!
This week in Vendease
? Would you like to be part of creating an amazing experience on Vendease while enjoying free delivery on your next 3 orders? Apply to join the Vendease Focus Group.
❌ We’re all about helping food businesses grow, so here are some procurement mistakes you shouldn’t make as a restaurant owner. Learn more.
