High quality flour for next level baking.

MONDAKO®

Mondako flour is milled from a blend of northern winter and spring wheat. Its consistent mixing time and water absorption is ensured by careful patent stream selection. This flour is well-suited for hand tossed and medium crust pizza applications. It is also chosen by bakers for its high tolerance with laminated and frozen baked goods.

High-Gluten Flour

Power flour is a premium, high-gluten flour milled from northern hard red spring wheat. Designed to produce baked goods that require long fermentation and retardation periods, Power is perfectly blended for pan and thick crust pizza formulas.

Neapolitan

Italian-Style Pizzeria Flour

This 00-type flour is the key to producing a light dough with dependable extensibility, the perfect rise and a soft thin crust — all without compromising old world quality or flavor.

2UTILIZE RELIABLE PRODUCTS CONSISTENTLY AND WIDELY.

As a pizza restaurant operator, I know there are certain products that I can get consistently, such as flour. Since virtually all flour plants are automated and very few human beings are needed to work in them, we’re having an okay time getting flour in (even though shipping and receiving is going through the roof, but that’s another story). And when I know I can rely on a particular product, I try to use that product for all possible segments of my menu. For example:

Available Product Myriad Uses

Ricotta cheese Pizza, hamburgers, salads

Roasted red peppers Pizza, salads, new appetizers

Stale bread Croutons, bread crumbs

Ground beef Meatballs, pizza, salads, soups

Cherry tomatoes Salads (whole or ground), pastas, pizza (gourmet item)

Pepperoni Pasta dishes, salads, pizza

Romano cheese Romano potato chips, salads, pizzas

I have to be a chameleon. The current supply situation demands a level of creativity, which solves the problem of what my customers are going to eat tonight. However, it also brings its own set of problems. Because now I need somebody in my kitchen as either an executive chef or a sous chef to create these new dishes. So, yeah, I want to be flexible—I have to be flexible—but many times my staff looks at me like the proverbial deer in headlights when I tell them what I want to do. That means that, every day, I’m in the kitchen, training. And that costs time. And time is money. But I have to do it.

3UTILIZE UNRELIABLE PRODUCTS FOR PREMIUM DISHES ONLY—AND CHARGE CUSTOMERS ACCORDINGLY.

A 4- to 6-ounce white chicken breast has become the four-leaf clover of the pizza business—good luck finding one. That means I can no longer reliably offer pizza with white chicken breast on my menu at this point. Why? Because 1) I don’t have enough of it, and 2) I have to use that chicken breast, when I do get it, for dishes that have higher margins, like chicken Parm. I have to make it a premium item. As a replacement, I can buy chicken tenders, another type of white meat, to use for my chicken sandwiches. But, by and large, I have to say byebye to white chicken breast on pizza.

Fresh vegetables are also a concern. All those laborers toiling in the fields picking vegetables are really close and on top of each other, so vegetables have been difficult to order consistently.

And because of the scarcity of supply, I also have to increase pricing on these items. Luckily, our customers understand. They know that everything is going up—barbecue grills, fencing, lumber, fish—based on what they read in the newspapers and on social media. They are savvy and haven’t questioned our need to raise prices. At least, not yet.

BUILD RELATIONSHIPS.

Relationships—with manufacturers, with distributors, with customers—are more important than ever. As Fusco notes, manufacturers haven’t been good about communicating delays and shortages to their distributor and retail partners. “They don’t want us to tell our customers that there are delays or shortages, because they don’t want our customers to go out and buy new product or find other things that fit their menu,” she says. “So it turns into a disaster from the top, and it’s just bleeding over, because there’s no communication to realistically stop it.”

Exactly. That’s why communication on our end is vital. We need to go to our sales reps and our manufacturer partners in order to build—and, in some cases, rebuild—that relationship. Let them know, “Hey, we’re here! And we’re doing everything we can to work with you.” We need to make the effort. Right now, manufacturing companies and distributors are going through their portfolios and deciding:

• Who is weathering this storm?

• Who has been loyal to my brand?

If the communication is bad, they’re kicking restaurants to the curb. No joke. I’ve seen it happen. And, in some cases, they’re doing it with less than 24 hours’ notice.

I don’t want that to be you. (Or me.) Do what you can. Change up your menu. Be creative with your dishes. Reach out to your distributors and manufacturers. Stay on top of food trends. At Federal Hill Pizza, we are problem-solving every day to weather this storm. We are battening down the hatches, tossing lifelines in the water, doing whatever we can to stay alive.

Just like Jack and Rose.