The consultant will work closely with the management and interior/architectural team to ensure that the proposed menu, kitchen infrastructure and inventory system are commercially viable and operationally efficient.
1. MENU PLANNING & ENGINEERING
The consultant will be responsible for developing and structuring the café's food and beverage menu.
Responsibilities
- Understand the café concept, target audience and positioning.
- Recommend the appropriate menu structure and categories.
- Determine an optimal number of menu items/SKUs.
- Develop and/or recommend dishes across relevant categories.
- Identify signature/hero products.
- Ensure appropriate ingredient cross-utilization across dishes.
- Evaluate dishes based on:
- Food cost
- Selling price
- Gross margin
- Preparation time
- Operational complexity
- Ingredient availability
- Storage requirements
- Recommend appropriate portion sizes.
- Develop standardized recipes for finalized menu items.
- Calculate recipe-level food costs.
- Recommend selling prices based on food cost and positioning.
- Conduct menu engineering and identify items that should be retained, modified or eliminated.
Expected Deliverables
- Final proposed menu structure
- Menu item recommendations
- Standardized recipe sheets
- Recipe-level costing
- Portion specifications
- Food-cost analysis
- Recommended pricing
- Menu engineering analysis
- Ingredient cross-utilization matrix
1. KITCHEN PLANNING & EQUIPMENT SPECIFICATION
The consultant will provide the operational and F&B; requirements required for designing the café kitchen.
Responsibilities
- Analyse the finalized/proposed menu and determine kitchen requirements.
- Design the recommended kitchen workflow.
- Define requirements for:
- Food preparation
- Hot kitchen
- Cold preparation
- Pizza/preparation stations
- Beverage station
- Dessert/plating
- Washing
- Dry storage
- Cold storage
- Freezer storage
- Dispatch/pass area
- Waste management
- Determine the required equipment based on the menu and expected volume.
- Recommend equipment quantity and appropriate capacity/specifications.
- Identify utility requirements including electrical, gas, water and drainage requirements where relevant.
- Recommend appropriate storage capacity.
- Review the kitchen layout prepared by the architect/interior designer and provide operational feedback.
- Identify potential workflow bottlenecks and space inefficiencies before finalization.
Note: The consultant will provide F&B; operational and kitchen-planning inputs. Final architectural/CAD drawings will be handled by the appointed architect/interior designer.
1. INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
The consultant will establish a practical inventory management framework for the café.
Responsibilities
- Develop a complete inventory classification system.
- Categorize inventory into:
- Dry goods
- Fresh produce
- Dairy
- Meat/eggs
- Frozen products
- Bakery products
- Beverages
- Packaging/consumables
- Cleaning and operational supplies
- Establish recommended:
- Par levels
- Minimum stock levels
- Maximum stock levels
- Reorder levels
- Reorder quantities
- Determine appropriate stocking frequency for major ingredient categories.
- Establish FIFO/FEFO principles.
- Create a system for tracking:
- Opening stock
- Purchases
- Consumption/usage
- Wastage
- Closing stock
- Stock variance
- Identify high-value/high-risk inventory items requiring tighter controls.
- Recommend inventory practices based on the finalized menu and expected business volume.
Expected Deliverables
- Master inventory list
- Inventory categorization system
- Par-level framework
- Minimum/maximum stock levels
- Reorder-level system
- Stock-taking format
- Wastage tracking format
- Inventory control framework
- Recommended inventory cycle/frequency