Catering During the Cost of Living Crisis

How can you encourage people to dine out if they can’t afford to dine in?

Across the country, Brits are trading down in an attempt to curb their household spending. At home, this means swapping premier brands for name-brand products, and on the high street, that means swapping dining out for dining in.

In a recent?YouGov?survey, dining out and ordering a takeaway ranked 2nd and 4th respectively in the list of key areas that people were cutting back on, with 39% of Brits choosing to dine in rather than out and 38% swapping their weekly takeaway for a home-made dinner. With food inflation currently sitting at a staggering 15% and high inflation rates expected to persist until 2023, doing nothing simply isn’t an option for restaurant businesses looking to weather the storm.

So What Can Restaurants Do to Combat the Cost of Living Crisis?

It’s simply not sustainable for restaurants to absorb every price increase they encounter, but raising plate prices during the current financial situation isn’t going to encourage diners through your door. So what can you do to cover your own rising costs without alienating your customers?

1. Rework Your Current Menu

One of the easiest ways to keep dish prices down is to swap out some of the more expensive ingredients on your menu. Ditch the cod for haddock, switch premium seafood for mussels, and steer clear of pricy cuts of beef. If you’re currently using a lot of imported ingredients, then look to local suppliers for cheaper alternatives without sacrificing quality.

2. Offer a Good Deal

Everyone loves to feel as though they’ve gotten a good deal. Offering a free drink with every main course, ‘kids-eat-free’ promotions during the last days of the school holidays, and even 2-4-1 offers on certain low-cost menu items can drive traffic through your door and ultimately increase spend per head on other areas of your menu.

3. Be Transparent about Your Costs

One of the biggest problems food operators face when raising prices is a backlash from their customers. While most diners understand that the cost of ingredients has risen, they forget that restaurants are also facing the rising cost of labor, energy prices, and rent. If you need to raise your prices, let your customers know why - you’re in this together.

4. Use the Cost of Living Crisis to Design an Entirely New Concept

While we’re all hoping to see prices fall in 2023 and beyond, there’s no quick fix to many of the inflation issues we're currently facing and in reality, rising prices could be here to stay. Rather than look for a quick fix, it may be better to reevaluate your current concept entirely and pivot in a more affordable and sustainable direction ahead of your competition.

Find a Game-Changing Solution

Here at Egg Soldiers, we understand how intimidating it is to develop a new concept, menu, or idea. We know because we’ve done it and do it for a living. Getting to the crux of a problem and finding the solution is our bread and butter and we have a team of strategic thinkers, creative minds, and both commercial and operational experts eager to take on the challenge.

If the cost of living crisis is threatening the success of your business, then we want to help you turn that into a positive opportunity. Visit?our website?or get in touch for a free no-obligation consultation and to see how we can help.??