While the actual amounts of various nutrients found in different foods vary, the weight and volume of a portion of food served could be an excellent guide in offering nutritional quality. That is why it is really important that as a caterer you know the proper serving portions for the dishes that you prepare. You can make them even more standardized by weighing or measuring them.
The accuracy of portion sizes will have to depend on the event. With this, it is important that foods and ingredients are weighed accurately if you are catering for hospital patients who are required to undergo special diets. For normal events, such as gatherings and parties, suitable standard measuring equipment, like cups or mugs will suit just fine. Indeed, your portion size is determined by your pricing, the cost of preparing the dish and your business’ policies. For example, you have 10 or 20 percent mark-up on the amount spent on preparing the meals.
However, if you stick too much on the measurement, you might leave your guests with the impression of being stingy, something that it not desirable if you are to maintain excellent customer relations. Nevertheless, using cups and spoons as measurements in portion control will enable the service to flow quicker, faster and more efficient. This is true for beverages, like tea, coffee or soup, which could get cold if each cup were to be measured with standard equipment and then served.
If you really want to standardize your portioning, then, why not buy pre-portioned food or portion the ingredients during preparation? You can do so with cutlets, meat balls, chicken legs, chops, kebabs, etc.
Nevertheless, not all foods are sold in pre-portioned sizes. However, it is still possible for you to portion your serving! How?
Standard recipes
Stick to standard recipes and you’ll the guarantee that you will use the same ingredients every time you prepare a dish. The method of preparation should be standardized to make sure that the amount is consistent in amount, flavor or volume. Pay attention to your garnishing. You might want to spring a little extra basil, but take note that this could adversely affect the price.
Portioning guides
You may want to stick to charts and guides that will tell you what portion size to follow for a specific dish. Place it on the wall of your kitchen, so will be reminded of the right amount whenever you are preparing a certain dish. There will always come a time when you tend to serve unequal portions to customers unintentionally, and for this case, a portioning guide is of a great help. Likewise, you must also prepare a list of dishes complete with portioned serving for your clients. This will give them the idea what to expect when meals are served and so they could assess whether or not they are getting value for money. If you think your portioning is generous, then good because you’re being transparent and honest about what you have to offer.
Close supervision
This is so far the best way to make sure that portion control is being observed in the kitchen. However, this is only good if you’re serving 50-200 people. Either you do this yourself or hire additional staff just to supervise this task, especially if you are catering to a large number of crowds. Nevertheless, if the right service equipment is being used and your staff sticks to rules of portioning, the task would require minimal supervision.
Food portioning is indeed important not just to keep your profit margin intact, but also to reduce, if not avoid, food waste. So, take note of the ways of food portioning and keep the catering business running! Make food portioning easier and more convenient with a help of a catering software. Better Cater provides one of the most reliable software for caterers and kitchen professionals guaranteed to make your job more efficient, less wasteful and more meaningful.
