CHAOS IN THE KITCHEN

Across the board, venues are struggling to find staff, let alone those with the experience and skill to work independently. How can we work smarter to maximise our success in the kitchen with a young and inexperienced staffing group?

Since emerging from the worst months of the pandemic, food venues have endured a constant struggle for staff. Much of this can be sheeted home to reduced rates of immigration and fewer international students, but recent data reveals a deeper level of complexity.

It includes a greater number of sick days and annual leave being taken, as well as hours lost to extreme weather events. According to labour force data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, these factors resulted in a seasonally adjusted loss of 8.5m working hours in November 2022 compared with the previous month.

author GLENN CARTLEDGE

Combined with near-full employment, it’s a perfect storm of adverse labour conditions for food businesses at a time when they can expect demand for tables to grow.

So, what does the situation look like on the ground? For Kol Gemmell, head chef at Sandringham Yacht Club on Melbourne’s Port Phillip Bay, staffing the two busy rooms at his venue is a constant challenge.

“There is a lot of pressure on us because of staffing,” he says. “They’re all babies. Out of a total staff group of 50, I’ve got 42 who are under the age of 22.”

Gemmell says it means more time spent overseeing staff who are still earning their stripes, but for other chefs it can result in putting in extra hours to fill gaps in shifts.

“I haven’t had a day off in two weeks,” said Clay Wilkinson of the popular Ambassador of Redcliffe hotel in the Morton Bay region of Queensland, when I spoke to him in early November. “Labour is so hard to find, and it won’t change anytime soon.”

Wilkinson says it’s hard to get staff and even harder to get skilled people.

“There is a chronic shortage of chefs and, when you do get them, it’s hard to hang onto them.”

Elsewhere, the lack of experienced staff has greatly impacted the ability of venues to consistently execute dishes, which can lead to an inefficient kitchen, customer complaints and cost overruns when excess ingredients are used.

“Getting a consistent dish out the kitchen is a huge problem,” says Sherie Jones of the Gem Hotel in Alberton, Queensland. “Some chefs are heavier handed with, say, a spaghetti bolognaise; some will pile it full while others will be light with the sauce.”

As always, it’s vital that venues remain agile and find ways to adapt to changing conditions. Let’s look at how we can adjust the way we do things to successfully make our way through this challenging period.

1. SIMPLIFY THE MENU

It may seem like an obvious idea to embrace, but menu simplification can bring its own challenges. For example, dishes that take time to produce, such as burgers, can often be the most profitable.

Equally, you might have some meals that generate poor margins, but you know your diner base would be furious if you simplified them or removed them from the menu.

So, try these ideas instead:

• Make the commitment to shift to allergen-free ingredients wherever possible. That way, diner requests for menu alterations are minimised and the strain on your kitchen is instantly reduced

• Aim to use fewer ingredients in more innovative ways. By reducing your inventory, you will decrease kitchen waste and fast-track familiarity with ingredients among the inexperienced members of your kitchen

• Consider whether your venue could move to a set menu, even if it’s only for certain sittings. A set menu is possibly the ultimate in menu simplification.

One last thing: when reducing or simplifying your menu, a great tip is to use your specials board for interesting and trending dishes. This will make sure your menu remains dynamic and exciting.

2. RELY ON RECIPE CARDS

One of the biggest issues with a transient, young and inexperienced crew is generating consistent dishes. Taking the time to create recipe cards, especially ones with photography, takes out a lot of the guesswork over how to produce house dishes.

If you don’t have time to make your own, use an independent resource such as CTB And Co., whose scalable recipe cards give venues the confidence that meals will be made to the same standard every time, while also providing valuable information on dish cost and profitability. cont’d