Food Service

This past fall the food and beverage managers from nine prominent Colorado ski resorts got together for the first of what is planned as periodic seminars. The first was held at Keystone, and we print below the highlight notes sent to us by Jacqueline Kramer, of the host area’s marketing department. There is no significance in the order of listing of these random points.

1. Vegetable canned goods this year will be 12-20 per cent higher because weather and other problems affected growing of crops. Supply and demand definitely determines prices on items.
2. It might be a good idea to re-educate selves and public by substituting foods where prices have gone up. Example: Instead of serving a lettuce salad, serve cottage cheese or carrot salad.
3. Prices also might be higher because in past years shipments have been brought back from California on trucks which went there to bring meat. With the meat shortage, trucks were not leaving Colorado, so special shipments had to be made to Colorado on shipping lines and the cost of this trucking must be passed on to the buyer.
4. It was advised that purchasers not shy away from soya bean products which are approved for use by the FDA. It is not necessary any more to use pure beef.
5. Experiment with other substitutes. Example: Convenience chicken salad on a 50/50 ratio with real chicken salad. The customer usually cannot tell the difference.
6. Stay away from items which have had a bad season and are therefore higher priced. Example: Instead of cherry or blueberry pies, use pies that have fillings that don’t cost as much, such as lemon chiffon, etc.
7. Have confidence in purveyor — set specifications in your own mind, communicate them to the supplier and stick to them. Returning inferior goods once in a while will show the supplier that you mean business.
8. Set inventory and order 10 per cent over that just to be sure you don’t run short due to shipping into the mountain areas.

The above suggestions came mostly from the suppliers. The ski area personnel had some ideas of their own.

1. Labor costs seem to run between 25 and 30 per cent including management. The average wages paid to food & beverage employees range from $1.85 per hour to $2.50. Most starting wages were in the $2.00 bracket with merit increases fairly soon after employment, once the worker has established aptitude.
2. It was suggested (by Keystone, with other areas in unanimous agreement) that they were going to try a night shift from 6:00 P.M. to 12:00 A.M. to prepare food such as sandwiches, plate cake and generally get ready for the next day. This releases employees to ski the entire day, and makes them willing to work, while also getting the work done at a time when food service is not busy working on meals.
3. Theft and cashier dishonesty: have management check regularly to oversee; possibly substitute new till periodically with same bank as employee counted in the morning at irregular times during the day, counting the money taken in.
4. Everybody’s inventory percentage ran at an average of 37 per cent. It was suggested that a shopper come in to rate service and food at unannounced times. This keeps employees honest and gives unbiased appraisal of services.
5. The general consensus was that paper trays are more economical than plastic and others because they eliminated the dishwashing procedure and costs out to less overall.
6. The brown bag problem was discussed. The general opinion at the end is although no one really wants brown baggers, you have to have them and be nice to them as they are buying other services from the area and think only of the overall impression of the area. The one consensus was to encourage brownbaggers to sit in one area, designated for that purpose.
7. Several of the areas are wrapping their hamburgers instead of just putting them out on plates.
8. It was recommended that a computer hook-up be purchased for the french frier as this system turns out perfect fries at a fairly low cost.
9. Menu items were briefly discussed, some areas are considering fish sandwiches, others dropping this item from the line. It was mentioned that corn-dogs were a consistent item on the menu, especially among the teenagers and youngsters.