The Food Business 2020

The food service industry is ever evolving and changing as we head into 2020. Budgets are getting tighter with the rise in minimum wage and the cost of goods increasing.
Will the prices just go up? 
Will everyone in the industry just have to work harder?
I believe it will be a combination of adjusting prices, labor control, and managing food cost. 
     Prices will have to be increased as the cost of doing business increases.  That means as labor cost rises the cost to order products to do business will go up as well.  This in turn will be passed on to the consumer. Menus will be engineered to include a mix of more lower food cost items and less high food cost items to offset the increases. We will see a slow rise in prices every year to ease consumers into rising prices and reduce sticker shock. A example of sticker shock would be Mcdonalds raising the cost of a burger from $8.00 to $15.00 over night.  Instead they would do it gradually so people won't feel it as much.

     We have to run our labor as tight as possible while still providing customer service which  becomes more and more challenging. To much staff you lose money , to little staff , you provide poor customer service and you lose money.  So the challenge is to find the middle ground where you have the right amount of staff scheduled to provide good customer service and allow you to make money.  

As chefs and managers we also have to hire and train staff that can work multiple areas of the operation to get the most out of our employees.
      As an example in the kitchen on a slow day if you can work multiple stations you get the hours.  A person who isn't willing to learn multiple areas of the kitchen and only wants to work one station won't get hours when its slow.  Even when it is busy you may be able to have a person work two stations and save money by not having another person working. Another example is having a person prep in the morning for a few hours then go out and run a register or host when the food service operation opens up. Then there is no need for a morning prep person.
      Last but not least managing food cost which is one of the most important.  Chefs and managers will have to run their inventories as tight as possible by only ordering what is needed. They will have to minimize all waste and cross utilize products. Food will have to be ordered that can be utilized in multiple menu items to get the most out of the product.  Products will need to be purchased in bulk to get better prices.  Menus will have to be tweaked to make sure all menu items are selling which will allow you to go through the inventory and not waste product. 
     It is going to take skilled food service managers and chefs to mange the rising costs of doing business.  No the cost isn't just going to go up. Yes everyone in the industry will have to work a little harder with labor costs going up but it can be managed.