Key Considerations For Starting An Establishment Such As A Cafe In The Food And Beverage Industry

Explains the key considerations to be taken while starting an establishment such as a café in food and beverage industry.

Role and Contents of a Catering Policy

The current study is a report which describes to what extent the planning of strategies and execution of those plans affects the customers' experience in any business. The business chosen here is an establishment of a café in Australia which belongs to the food and beverage industry. The food and beverage industry is crucial and affects the global economy as a whole and the quality of services along with customer satisfaction remain the focus. In the present report, the role and details of the catering policy are discussed and how those policies have been incorporated while establishing the café as planned by the researcher. Every detail from production to the quality of food and service, a design of interiors and menus, food presentation, economic trends and the social environments may be taken into consideration and planned appropriately in advance as these may affect the food business largely (Higgins et al. 2017)

Every industry including the food and beverage industry is guided by some regulations and policies. A café is a part of the catering business and any retailers of the food business who are involved in serving food to the consumers directly need to follow certain safety requirements. Before starting an establishment informing the local council is essential from who licenses and permits shall be required (Chen, Flint, Perry, Perry & Lau, 2015). The food shall not contain any hazardous material and the café needs to ensure no food poisoning happens when the food is consumed by the customers. Handling of the food from the time of preparation, storage, packaging and then till delivery needs special attention so that no food poisoning takes place. The establishment needs to be well equipped with both human and physical resources that are required to handle a food carefully like preserving it in the right temperature and suitable current stock of spices and vegetables, bread etc.  

The establishment of the researcher would mainly serve the people visiting the café, serving customers in their tables as per the food ordered by them according to the menu (Catering Policy, 2018). The food options would be both veg and non-veg based on the customers' preference. The café would be opened to the people from 12 pm to 9 pm and thus the hours of operation for the employees would be from 10 am to 10 pm. The employees need to be provided safety precautions. The employees need to be trained properly so that the food is not undercooked or overlooked and all ways of food contamination are avoided so that customers' satisfaction is gained. Maintaining the regulation as well as environmental rules as set by the country of its operation is important (Greene, 2018).

The key consideration for the cafe

Setting up an establishment requires a lot of experimentation and preparation before the business starts. The location for the café was chosen near a University as in order to maximize sales the targeted customers are young boys and girls within the age group 20-35 years. Offering attractive benefits to such group of customers would make them a repetitive buyer and word of mouth among the same group of targeted customers would expand the consumer base. Standard and required kitchen equipment along with the experienced staff are required so that the food reaches the customers in a prompt time (Ozdemir & Caliskan, 2014). There shall always be a plan to serve all even if unexpectedly more numbers of customers pour in. Access to enough capital always is important. The food served would always be hot and presentation to the end-customers' needs to be planned and staffs trained accordingly to impress the consumers. As a founder of the establishment, the researcher expects that after having the food consumers would feel an emotional attachment to the café and would help in making the newly form brand more popular.

The consumers are expected to be impressed with the food quality and in addition to it, end season sales offered by the café would attract customers largely. The menu needs to be updated as per the reviews and needs of the consumers and for that reason staffs with diverse skills shall be employed. The café would be a retail business serving customers who visit the café or deliver food on accurate place and time who would order food online through food applications. The menu will focus on providing Italian dishes. The service method would be table service followed by the English service for people who would likely to seat and eat in the café premises which may require trolleys, bowls, spoons, dishes etc. There would also be a takeaway counter where food would be packed and handed over to the customers. The payments would be received in cash, credit or debit cards, using budget code or through meal accounts and via cheques (Hawley et al. 2013). This type of establishment would fall under the hyperlocal and locally sourced produced global trend related to the food and beverage industry as the raw materials used would be from the local area focused on the preferences of the local people.

The dishes would be street food inspired and all non-alcoholic beverages. The café industry is growing on a vast scale globally where the use of highly equipped brewing machines, packaging, and choice of mocha and cappuccino are in trend (Parvin, Wang &Uddin, 2017).A sample design menu for the café is mentioned below:

• Entrees
• Penne Pasta with Chicken/Mushroom in tomato cream sauce
• Corn Cheese Balls
• Nachos with delicious and tangy tomato salsa dip
• Herby Chicken fingers- Deep fried chicken with herbs and spices
• Soup of the day- Tomato Basil Soup/Cream of Tomato Soup/Cream of Mushroom Soup/Cream of Asparagus Soup/Cream of Chicken soup
• Mains
• Lasagne- spinach-ricotta with chunky tomato sauce
• Vegetables Stroganoff- Australian exotic vegetables fricassee with lemon chili rice
• Fish Ala Kiev- Pan fried fish, lemon-parsley butter with sautéed vegetables
• Chicken Paprika- Pot roasted peppery chicken with herb pilaf
• Chicken Tetrazinni- Grilled chicken/cottage cheese with roasted potato salad, sautéed vegetables, citrus jus and cooked spaghetti
• Desserts
• Dark Chocolate fudge cake, balleys mousse and shavings of chocolate
• Tiramisu
• Vanilla pannacotta with seasonal fruits and berries
• Baked cheesecake with pineapple sauce and vanilla ice-cream
• Waffle- Vanilla/chocolate/butterscotch, with almond biscotti and ice-cream

Design of the menu

For the establishment, everything would start with the planning and evaluation of the menu. The menu of the café directs much about how the task will be composed and dealt with, the degree to which it meets its objectives, and even how the café builds itself - positively the interior - ought to be planned and built (MenuDesign, 2018).Each menu is a painstakingly developed to influence the customers into settling on specific choices that would make them revisit the restaurant again (Elder, Lister & Dauvergne, 2014). The menu would reflect the tastes of the customers and their food preferences and ascertain to their desires. Keeping in mind the marketing objectives such as price, specifications, time and location is important. The flavour, colour, consistency, textures, appeal it makes visually, the temperatures, palliation with beautiful apparels are some crucial factors which need to be done along menu planning and design. The concepts with food with nutritional value are also demanded by the consumers and hence the prepared food needs to be low in fats and high in fibres (Small, 2018).

Every establishment like this one has certain objectives for profits and thus being cost-effective is an important theory that will be followed by using ways that would minimise operational costs. The design of the menu reflects the theme of the café and that lures new clients to consume the food and thus an example of items from other successful cafes needs to be studied. While preparing the menu checking out the competitors' menu on the market has been done. Making the product differentiated is what would attract the customers.  Even if the items are the same adding a twist or flavour represents the signature style of the café (Annison, 2017). The pricing of the menu shall not go too high and that needs to be on par with the competitors. The layout of the menu has to be attractive and colourful and staffs well versed with the details of each item so that every customer's questions would be answered (Barringer, 2015). The items used has to be accurate and hence while planning the other constraints such as space of the outlet, available equipment, the efficiency and workflow of the staffs has to be kept in mind before preparing it.

Conclusion

For a newly form establishment such as a cafe to be successful in the market needs few specifications and planning. The recipe needs to design keeping in mind the standard taste of the customers and that all ingredients required are available. Customers do not like to hear no and thus use of seasonal ingredients shall be reduced. The marketing team shall satisfy the physical and social needs of the people. Hence, during festival or occasions, special menu with special dishes needs to be customised and prepared. Quality, quantity and appropriately prices of the food are essential for the success of a café in the competitive market.

Reference List:

Annison, G. (2017). The triumvirate underpinning Australia's food industry.Food Australia, 69(3), 18.

Barringer, B. R. (2015). Entrepreneurship: Successfully launching new ventures. Pearson Education India.

Catering Policy. (2018). Retrieved from : https://www2.canterbury.nsw.gov.au/council/policies/23-452-1.pdf

Chen, E., Flint, S., Perry, P., Perry, M., & Lau, R. (2015). Implementation of non-regulatory food safety management schemes in New Zealand: a survey of the food and beverage industry. Food control, 47, 569-576.

Elder, S. D., Lister, J., & Dauvergne, P. (2014). Big retail and sustainable coffee: A new development studies research agenda. Progress in Development Studies, 14(1), 77-90.

Greene, D. L. (2018). Why CAFE worked. In The Theory and Practice of Command and Control in Environmental Policy(pp. 93-111). Routledge.

Hawley, K. L., Roberto, C. A., Bragg, M. A., Liu, P. J., Schwartz, M. B., & Brownell, K. D. (2013). The sciHigginsence on front-of-package food labels. Public health nutrition, 16(3), 430-439.

Higgins-Desbiolles, F., Vilkinas, T., Wijesinghe, G., & Gifford, S. (2017). Native foods in Australian restaurants how to ensure Indigenous Australians benefit.

MenuDesign. (2018). Retrieved from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15378020.2015.1051428?data-src=recsys

Ozdemir, B., & Caliskan, O. (2014). A review of literature on restaurant menus: Specifying the managerial issues. International Journal of gastronomy and food science, 2(1), 3-13.

Parvin, S., Wang, P. Z., &Uddin, J. (2017).Assessing two consumer behavioural intention models in a service environment. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, 29(3), 653-668.

Small, K. A. (2018).The elusive effects of CAFE standards. In Transportation Policy and Economic Regulation (pp. 251-310