Commercial Foodservice Operators

What have Commercial Foodservice Operators been telling our field team over the past months?

The following feedback has been collected over the past few months directly from foodservice operators and are shared here for your information. We hope you find them informative.

Clubs & Pubs

• Patronage is back to pre-Covid levels with functions being many and larger; trivia nights are again running as well as bingo and speed-dating nights. 
• Tour buses are also back in greater numbers – this is particularly beneficial to club and pub businesses in the Northern Territory and other tourist destinations. Buses average 60 to 80 passengers several times per week – they come for lunch and dinner service. 
• So is weekly feature dishes, often using seasonal and locally sourced produce, as well as your customary fish & chips and chicken parmigiana! 
• Clubs and pubs are also reporting an increase in demand for vegetarian menu dishes as well as gluten free options. 
• The pubs and clubs are expecting a very busy summer period. 
• Vegetarian menu items are very profitable – operators go to the local markets to source seasonal, cheap and fresh vegetables. 
• Popular vegetarian menu items? Wild Mushroom Stack served for $28 or Tempura Vegetables and Asian Mixed Vegetable Stack served for $25.  Vegetable Burger Patties are also used in $15 burgers. 
• Many pubs and clubs find that losing kitchen hands, service staff and/or bar staff has little impact on business, however, losing your executive chef can cause major problems. Quite a few operators reported that they have to close down their foodservice offering until a new chef is found. However, while losing their chef can be “devastating”, employing a new one can be “a refreshing new start to their foodservice business”. 

Restaurants

• It remains important for many restaurateurs to offer their clientele a signature or feature menu dish using locally sourced produce as well as locally sourced proteins. Seasonality is also important – creating interest and variation in their menu offering. 
• Hence, restaurant operators increasingly are using several local butchers and greengrocers for their procurement but are also increasingly using local produce markets. 
• Noticeably, many restaurants have stopped offering bottled water, instead they offer chilled, filtered tap water – still or sparkling.  This is a trend mimicking what has been customary in restaurants in Europe for decades.

Cafes

• The big buzzword among Café operators is ‘LOCAL’ these days. Everything from keeping their local customers happy to using local produce and local suppliers including local butchers, greengrocers, and bakers. 
• In terms of these local suppliers, Café operators believe they get better prices, personalised service from vendors showing a genuine interest in their menus and who help them with many planning and who suggest special products and interesting local produce to use in their menu dishes. There are also no set procurement quantities, and any problems are fixed quickly and efficiently. 
• Cafés also report, as other foodservice channels do, a strong increase in demand for vegetarian menu dishes with operators offering new, interesting, fresh and varied vegetables dishes. 

Hotels

• Hotels report that business is back to normal with bookings up strongly and looking good for the future.
• The two main meal occasions offered by Hotels remain being breakfast and less so dinner. Functions are also back, equally if not more important, to Hotel foodservice business.
• Holiday makers have returned but in somewhat lesser numbers currently, but bookings are on the rise.
• Interestingly, the travelling sales representatives are also on the road again!
• Very interestingly, hotels within the larger hotel groups like AHL have not experienced any disruptions to food supply over the past 12 months as other independent foodservice operators have – not requiring them to product substitute and/or change menu items.