Think clearly about the catering industry from the choice of dishes.

There are many successful cases of chefs in the catering industry, but compared with the overall catering market, the proportion of entrepreneurs led by chefs is still very small, and the real main entrepreneurs are non-catering people, which determines that non-technical catering entrepreneurs are bound to face the problem of how to choose dishes, and on this issue, many catering novices are.

For example, a friend who runs a hot pot restaurant has a very good business, so he is likely to target the hot pot; If there is a fish business downstairs in his house that is full every day, he is likely to be preoccupied with cooking fish. Crayfish has been popular in recent two years, so all he can think about is crayfish ..... Especially in the case of technical support and accumulated industry experience, such visual blind spots are common.

First, understand and analyze the catering pattern, and clarify some basic problems.

For example, some dishes are very delicious, but they are time-consuming and labor-intensive, so they can only be used as family banquets for friends and relatives at home, and cannot be commercialized; Some dishes are severely restricted by ingredients and are in danger of being cut off; Some dishes need to add various additives to make taste, which has health and safety hazards; Some dishes are out of date, the audience is getting smaller and smaller, and the market is no longer interested.

secondly, understand the classification of dishes.

The dishes in the catering market are generally divided into Chinese restaurants (ranging from private kitchens to roadside snack shops);

hot pot (generally refers to all types that need to be cooked and eaten at the same time, not just spicy hot pot in Sichuan and Chongqing);

Snacks (breakfast stalls, noodle shops, chaos shops, maocai shops, dervish chickens, pot-stewed dishes shops, etc.);

special dishes (dry pot, braised pot, barbecue, etc.); Foreign catering (Thai food, Vietnamese food, Korean food, etc.).

Thirdly, study the advantages and disadvantages of various dishes.

Chinese restaurants have the advantages of wide audience and high acceptance, but the disadvantages are that they rely too much on the kitchen, the preparation of materials is too troublesome, and the requirements for kitchen personnel and cost control are very high. Lao Hu once stressed that if you are a Chinese restaurant, 12 dishes are standard, and the kitchen will not work without 1 people. Of course, if you just open a roadside snack shop, a chef can handle it, but basically it has nothing to do with the "brand"! The advantages of snacks are low personnel requirements, well-controlled food procurement and cost, and a wide audience. However, the disadvantages are that the popularity rate is too high and the technical content is too low. Anyone can open a snack bar on the roadside, and it is difficult to form an exclusive advantage that stands out from the crowd. It is difficult to attract people to travel long distances to eat your products. Don't take Chongqing Noodles as an example, because it has become a city's food business card and occupies the advantage of "geographical location"!

Only after having such a basic knowledge and understanding of all kinds of products can we be targeted in the choice of dishes and avoid falling into the misunderstanding of "self-righteousness". According to the situation I have contacted, most novice friends who are engaged in catering have only a little knowledge of dishes at the beginning of making decisions and choosing, and there are many imaginary things, such as finding a good chef, and dishes are not a problem.

regarding the choice of dishes, according to my own understanding of catering and various case studies, I have some lessons that I think may be useful to you.

1. Consider the scope of the audience:

Not only the age group (suitable for all ages), but also the regional differences. If it is done, can another place be equally popular? For example, rabbit heads are very popular in Sichuan, but in other places, it is difficult to see several beautiful women eating rabbit skulls. In Lijiang, people there don't even eat rabbit meat!

2. Consider the continuous supply of raw materials:

Try to choose dishes that can supply raw materials continuously and stably all year round, otherwise you will face a few months of supply failure, adding a lot of subsequent troubles, such as crayfish, which has only six months of high-quality ingredients in a year, and three months of meat quality rising and falling, and the remaining three months are simply desperate! No matter how good the business is in summer, it will still lose money in winter and even be forced to close down.

3. Consider the safety of ingredients and products:

Some ingredients have operational risks, such as poultry, and once they encounter bird flu, they will face extinction; Some ingredients need to be cleaned by adding chemical reagents when they are processed, and many food additives need to be added to enhance the color and fragrance when the products are cooked. Consumers hate this and try to avoid these ingredients and products, otherwise problems may occur at any time.

4. Consider the standardization of operation process:

If you are determined to be a catering brand, you will definitely pursue multi-store operation in the later stage, and the key point of multi-store operation lies in the consistency of taste, which inevitably requires the standardization of cooking technology and operation process. The reason why western-style fast food such as KFC has spread all over the world lies in its strict and simple standardized operation process. In the words of the industry, the highest level of this problem is to "kill the chef"!

5. Consider the reproducibility of food cooking:

It sounds similar to standardization, but there are differences in fact. Standardization has been achieved, and it has to be reproducible to form a multiplier force. Otherwise, as Wang Baoqiang said in "Too Embarrassed", the biggest secret of his cake making is to make it by himself, so it is impossible to talk about the later scale development of the brand!

6. Consider the non-replicability of the core technology:

The dish can only be made big if it is easy to copy, but the core technology of making this dish needs to be "non-replicable". In the early stage of business, it depends entirely on the exclusive taste to win market opportunities. If your cooking technology is not "exclusive", once your business is good, you will immediately face swarming followers, and finally you will even be surpassed by others, making wedding dresses for others in disguise!

7. The problem of * * * enjoyment of shareholders or chefs:

If chefs are partners, it is necessary to explain in advance that the cooking techniques and recipes of special dishes must be shared with shareholders * * *, otherwise it is best not to cooperate, because in the later stage, it is likely that chefs will threaten to leave because of some differences of opinion, or simply take a slap in the face and leave, and after changing chefs' teams, they can't make the same taste, which will lead to halfway collapse.

8. Repeated taste testing of dishes:

Some catering businesses start with "introducing foreign dishes", which is understandable. However, any dish must be tested repeatedly before it is started. Cooking will show obvious changes in taste due to differences in climate, water quality and temperature. Don't think that it will be no problem to bring it back to the local area just because you have eaten delicious food outside for several times.

9. Structure of dishes:

The highest level in catering management is "single item is king". Single item management is the best choice from any angle, but its risk is also the highest and it is the most difficult to operate, because you actively shut out guests who don't like this dish in disguise, so in the structure of dishes, it is "should be less than more, should be fine and should not be miscellaneous".

1. Research, development and promotion of dishes:

Restaurants that have been operating a variety for decades are exotic and heterogeneous. Most restaurants involve the promotion of dishes and the research and development of new dishes. In principle, they need to be continuous with the main dishes and cannot be hedged. However, because this problem belongs to the later stage of operation, we only make a reminder here, but we will not expand it for the time being. About the choice of dishes, that's about it! Limited by space, many of these problems can't be developed in detail. Friends who intend to join the catering industry and aspire to be catering brands need to do it themselves _ in-depth analysis and research.