The Conventional System in Restaurants Free Essay Example

The conventional system, also known as the traditional system, is widely used by many restaurants, especially the ones that are smaller and privately owned, as well as schools, colleges, hospitals and healthcare facilities. In this system, the food is prepared and cooked on the premise and then immediately served to the guests. This system is also labour intensive but it has a lower cost compared to the other systems.

In this system, the food is purchased following the food processing continuum from the start till the end.

For example, some items bought from the none-end will require full preparation; meanwhile, other ingredients may have already gone through some processing. The food bought at the complete end is already fully prepared and only require portioning and service.

The system has various advantages and disadvantages, which includes:

Advantages

• Quality Control: since the ingredients are purchased by the owner themselves, they’re able to choose the ones that match up to their standards.
• Traditional and standardized recipes can be used: since this system is rarely required in extremely large production quantities and the need in modification on recipes for chilling or reheating is very low, which means there are a lot of standardized recipes available for use.
• Flexibility in deciding menu items: since the food is cooked and served on the spot, the owner can decide what to put on the menu based on the ingredients purchased at the start of the day.
• Food is served right after cooking: which means very often, because the food is prepared and served immediately, it doesn’t have a big impact on the food freshness and quality.
• Higher degree of perceived quality: guests often think that homemade food naturally has better quality and freshness compared to those that are ready prepared and frozen.
• Adaptability: it is much easier to meet guest’s preferences, religion and ethnic practices, by preparing the food to meet their request.
• Economical: by taking advantage of seasonal discounts on food ingredients.
• Less need for freezer storage: since ingredients are used immediately after purchase, there is no need for a lot of cold storage spaces, saving on energy costs as well.

Disadvantages

• Stress: employees will have uneven workloads due to high demand during meal peak hours.
• Less productivity: since the menu is different all the time, the workload may vary, making it hard for workers to achieve higher productivity.
• Difficulty in scheduling employees: some employees may need to stay for a longer period of time due to the demand in opening hours, where overlapping often occurs.
• Consistency: there are multiple chefs in a restaurant or school, sometimes their shifts rotate and different people will be cooking the food, which will cause the taste, portion, and quality and food costs to vary. Guests may like the food they ordered the first time they had it, and ordered the same thing only to be disappointed because it didn’t taste as good as the last time they had it.