In order to stop food waste, more and more "small dishes" are on the menu of Zhengzhou restaurant.

after the menu "lose weight", some customers have doubts.

"the quantity is reduced by half, but the price is not reduced by half. Is the restaurant launching a' small dish' in a disguised price increase? "

For diners, the price of small portions seems to be not "affordable"; But for the store owner, the cost of a small portion is actually higher than the diners think.

how to find a balance between restaurant management and avoiding diners' waste has become an examination question for the catering industry.

With these questions, Henan Business Daily reporter visited.

large noodles can satisfy consumers' "practical motivation", but not "more practical"

For Zhengzhou people who love pasta, large noodles and small noodles have become the first choice for consumers to vomit.

"Why is it that a small portion of Huimian Noodles is only about two yuan cheaper than a large portion of Huimian Noodles, but the portion of noodles is half missing? Is this a marketing tool for merchants to induce me to buy a large portion under the slogan of' avoid waste'?"

With consumers' questions, Henan Business Daily reporters visited many noodle restaurants in Zhengzhou. As reflected by consumers, noodle shops with "large and small portions" differ by half or nearly half, and the price difference is 1-2 yuan.

take the noodle shop "Qin Feng noodles with minced meat" in Ronghua community as an example. The small portion is 11 yuan, the large portion is 12 yuan, and the large portion of noodles with minced meat is 14 yuan.

According to Zhang Xiuping, the proprietress, this practice is not to induce consumers to buy large portions because of the pursuit of so-called benefits. The shopkeeper hopes that consumers will get greater satisfaction after eating noodles. If only for the purpose of making money, according to the overall accounting proportion, diners with large appetite will have a similar "not affordable" psychology when choosing large portions, so the two yuan added to the large portions and oversized portions introduced by the noodle shop only wraps up the cost.

"This is actually a marketing tool, similar to small profits but quick turnover." Zhang Xiuping said.

In this regard, Chen Guangming, a marketing expert and the head of the Golden Book Management Consulting Company, believes that "big and small noodles" belong to the product category extension marketing strategy. For a merchant, adding money from 1 yuan or 2 yuan to small noodles actually earns money from small noodles, but this can make his products have an extra category to meet diners with different appetite. If an extra diners come in, they will have the opportunity to consume his drinks and side dishes. What really earns money is not the extra noodles.

Zhou Xiuting, director of the Marketing Research Center of Zhengzhou University, said: "The price difference seems to be only two yuan, but it is actually a psychological pricing. He said that adding two yuan to a small bowl of noodles to a large bowl of noodles will double the amount of noodles, so that customers who just come to eat noodles can eat more, increase their satisfaction after consumption and satisfy the psychology of "affordable motivation".

why can't "small portions" be as "affordable" as hot pot restaurants?

If the big bowl noodles are upgraded after adding two yuan to the small bowl noodles, it is mainly to increase the satisfaction of diners after consumption, then the restaurant that mainly cooks dishes is just the opposite.

on the internet, netizens have come up with the example of "fishing for half a dish in the sea". "Half of the dishes in the hot pot are half price, and the weight of' small dishes' is half less. Why is the price not half off?"

The reporter from Henan Business Daily found that since the call of "saving strictly and opposing waste" was implemented, except for the dishes in hot pot, the charging standard for "small dishes" in cooking restaurants is only 31% -7.5% off the whole meal, which is not so "affordable" from the menu.

In this regard, Sheng Junjie, a master chef in China and executive vice president of the professional committee of famous chefs in Henan Province, said: "Almost every dish in the restaurant has to be fried separately. For the chefs in the restaurant, the time and energy spent on' small dishes' have hardly decreased, and the cost of dishes is far less valuable than the chef's time. In addition, judging from a series of services in the restaurant, the number of customers that the restaurant can receive every day generally does not change much, and the salary cost and rent cost of the waiter will not be reduced because of the decrease in the amount of food. "

Sheng Junjie, for example, when two people come to dinner, they usually choose a table area of four people, and a dish takes five minutes. In the past, it took them 11 minutes to order two dishes in the kitchen, but now they order three or four small dishes, and the kitchen takes 15-21 minutes. As the workload of the stove and chef goes up, the serving time will slow down, the time for guests to occupy the table will become longer, the turnover rate will decrease, and the profit will decline. In this way, it is estimated that many restaurants with ordinary business will lose money if small dishes are strictly carried out at half price.

Generally speaking, if we can't find a balance between the business model and waste avoidance when launching "small portions of vegetables", it will strengthen the three pain points of "timeliness, efficiency and standardization" and lead to higher costs.

This round of upgrading and reform of "small portion dishes" is not only an opportunity to promote the formation of a new saving fashion in society and help consumers develop a good habit of ordering moderately, but also a new opportunity and challenge for the catering industry.

Formulating standardized production ratio for "small portions"

Shen Qiang, executive deputy general manager of A-Wu Yellow River Carp, told Henan Business Daily: "In fact, we diners sometimes feel very sad when they see that our guests are very wasteful. Improving food waste has always been a key task in our business process, and at the same time, it is also an optimization for us. "

According to Shen Qiang, different catering formats and dishes face different problems. In this regard, A-Wu Yellow River Carp has formulated a set of standardized "small dishes" production ratio according to the dishes. Although the price is not directly halved, the proportion of meat and auxiliary dishes can be adjusted to increase the sense of benefits brought to customers after the price reduction.

Shen Qiang said, "For example, the content of chicken in a large portion of fried chicken is 511g, and the skin is 311g. However, we don't directly halve the material. The content of chicken in a small portion is 351g, and the skin is 251g. The main ingredients and auxiliary materials are different, so the price is not calculated according to the absolute value. Therefore, we don't have a' half dish', only a' small dish'. "

A reporter from Henan Business Daily found that if two people go to have a meal, the waiter will give the customer a "small dish" of meat and vegetables, and if it is not enough, they can order a staple food of rice.

It is suggested that the ordering platform should give traffic subsidies

Yue Yuan, the founder of Boom Marketing Consulting, believes that if the "small dish" is turned into a half-price and half-price in a hot pot restaurant, it is tantamount to doubling the operating cost for the restaurant, so the restaurant will price the "small dish" at 7-7.5 fold.

For such "small dishes", ordering four "small dishes" will be much more expensive than ordering two "large dishes" before. From the perspective of personal expenses, such a "small dish" dinner is tantamount to a waste, and it is also a waste for the kitchen.

However, China people have a tradition of "arranging noodles" when having a dinner. They think that a dinner for six people requires six cold dishes and six hot dishes, or at least 11 dishes. Now the "n-1" ordering strategy, in which six people order five dishes at a dinner, will make the guests feel very humiliated. At this time, choosing "small portions" can not only save the face of the guests and avoid waste, but also give the whole table a sense of direct discount of 31%.

Yue Yuan suggested that the launch of "small dishes" in restaurants would be restricted by "cost" in a great extent, but it was a little uneconomical for consumers to pay for it if "small dishes" were not half-priced. It was suggested that the online ordering platform could give certain flow subsidies to restaurants that launched "small dishes" with half-price, so as to promote the restaurant to realize "small dishes" with half-price at an early date.