Hospitality & Food Service : Products’ supply

Hospitality & Food Service : Products’ supply 

For Hospitality & Food Service organizations, the main challenge is to provide a product and an experience at a lower cost for both the final customers and the company.

This is why a good supply chain management is as critical for this sector as it is for mass retail. In fact, as for many other sectors from the food and beverage industry, a good supply chain management is a chance for hotels, restaurants and other structures to remain competitive.

1. Efficient supply chain management

1.a Good relations with suppliers, good storage, forecast your needs

Good relations with suppliers 

This is the key and starting point of a good supply chain management but also the driving force to guarantee a sustainable service to customers. Especially in this sector, human relations are at the core of business. Work constantly on your interactions’ transparency and honesty to get the best deals. This also means paying your bills without delay, not ignoring conflicts but resolving them and also showing that you are the clients and so, you expect the same attitude from them.

Good storage 

To do this, you need to implement an intern storing procedure. The main goals are to avoid waste as much as possible and also to guarantee the food safety and so, your customers’ health. 3 rules are to be kept in mind : Arrange a dedicated space for each food category ; store all your products immediately after receiving them ; maintain  your storage spaces clean.

Forecast your needs

Especially in high season, structures like restaurants and hotels can quickly get out of stock. To avoid this, you need to map your quantities in advance so you can get in touch with the suppliers upstream. This will also help you stay consistent and so, reduce your costs and waste.

1.b Food safety

More than a key point from your supply chain, food safety is a mandatory responsibility that you have as a hospitality & food service organization. 

To ensure the food safety of your organization, you should first check on your supplier’s food safety’s policy and quality management : look at the quality assessments, guidelines, recalls etc. 

Source : Unique Venues, Slideshare

2. Trends & forecasts

A cycle : Farm-to-table, farm-to-bottle, forage-to-table

Consumers are looking for more authentic, transparent and sustainable experiences above from just an act of consumption when it comes to food service & hospitality.

As a consequence, consumers pay more attention than before to ingredients’ quality and fairness in the restaurants or hotels, like they do in the supermarket.

The hospitality and food service sectors should see this as an opportunity to go back to local and save on shipping costs.

Back to local 

CSR has become fundamental for business, even for hospitality & food service. Especially for procurements and food waste management, sustainability is now recognized as an ally for your benefits because a strong policy can help you reduce your costs. Here are some food for thoughts :

• Reduce your supply chain’s carbon footprint by searching for local and green suppliers, small producers (this is hard for big structures, but it worths to give a try, first on small quantities or specific products).

• Cook ingredients from season : this is a good way to shorten your supply chain system and it will also help you remain attractive because you will renew your menu several times in the year.

This may be hard to get a start in CSR but it will definitely positively impact your ROI because you will improve your resilience but also attract new consumers looking for more sustainable food services. 

In-house growing 

More and more establishments are using their spaces to implement a small garden or use the roof-top as bees keeper. This is perceived as a strong added value by customers because it is associated with better quality and scarcity (due to smaller quantities). 

In-house growing is also the opportunity for a chef to innovate on the menu and propose uncommon dishes to its customers. 

Fore more information about procurement and supply chain, check our job descriptions in the News Tab.You can also keep updated about the Logistics or Hospitality & Food Services’ news in the Market News’ Tabs.

uFoodin Team