This week, Jay Averill, Regional Executive Chef for ESS, concludes our menu development series by discussing the mechanisms we use for client and team engagement in the process and the data and information we use to begin creating our next menu cycle.
Prior to go-live, every menu cycle is signed off by our clients through our Stakeholder Partnering Group. This face-to-face event gives us the opportunity to present the rationale for our new menu and showcase new dishes and concepts that we’ve introduced. We invite military and Defence Infrastructure Organisation (DIO) personnel, as well as representatives from relevant groups like the MOD Vegan & Vegetarian Network.
Before we launch our new menus, we hold a series of forums for our unit teams, where our regional and group executive chefs attend sites and talk our colleagues through the menu structure and the basis for our decision-making. The events give everyone the opportunity to taste our new recipes, familiarise themselves with the concepts and cover how the dishes should be prepared, supported by detailed implementation guides.
Once a menu has launched, we undertake ongoing monitoring and evaluation to feed back into the development process for the next cycle. Each meal component is sold separately, so we have sales figures for every item which provides rich data for understanding what’s popular and where we need to make a change. Gathering input from our unit teams is also crucial here as they are interacting with our customers every day.
We combine detailed information on what our customers are buying with the latest industry trends, insights and supplier expertise. Using all of these inputs, the whole process begins again – ensuring that our food offer continues to develop and evolve based on customer behaviours and current market trends.
