CHAOS IN THE KITCHEN

3. EMBRACE CONVENIENCE PRODUCTS

Savvy kitchens are ones that focus their labour on the activities that set their venue apart and allow convenience products to do the heavy lifting behind the scenes.

4. TRAIN AND UP-SKILL STAFF

There are many benefits to your kitchen if staff are trained in-house, with perhaps the best being you can teach them according to the values you hold as a chef. A commitment to up-skilling has benefits for your venue and the individual.

When staff hold wide-ranging skills, venues can more confidently run themed sittings, such as curry or schnitzel night. Teaching staff how to plate, tend the grill and manage inventory ensures their job satisfaction is high because they’re learning new skills.

author GLENN CARTLEDGE

Increasingly, venues are switching their attention away from the kinds of intensive jobs that are difficult and time consuming for inexperienced kitchen hands to execute.

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.

This strategy works particularly well for high volume dishes. A good example is the parmigiana, which can be cut and crumbed by a local butcher, giving your kitchen a flying start and allowing it to focus its efforts on creating great sides, toppers and sauces instead.

To make the experience of your staff even better, you can extend their learning into related areas that also benefit your venue. The sorts of additional skills that may be useful to you and your staff include responsible service of alcohol, barista and front-of-house training.

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.

Additional benefits of frozen and other convenience products include predictability of supply and price stability.

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.

“There is a lot of pressure on the kitchen 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.”