With the UK Hospitality industry embracing the post-Covid-19 environment and lack of restrictions, businesses thought they could finally look forward to a normal summer. However, with the rising costs coming from the energy increase epidemic we are presently experiencing, it's no wonder the hospitality industry is struggling. With another hurdle to contend with, here are some ways to make your business more efficient.
What Are The Increases And What Can You Do?
Just as the UK Hospitality industry was finding its feet after the pandemic, a whole host of new challenges have arisen. The implementation of Brexit has caused a variety of supply issues, as has the war in Ukraine. As well as, VAT returning to pre-pandemic levels, a jump from 12.5% to the full 20% VAT rates, and a rise in the minimum wages have added an extra burden to the hospitality sector's costs.
It may appear bleak and like there is little point in fighting on if you are a hospitality business, but there are various steps you can take to keep going. Here are some:
Increase Prices
At the end of the day the easiest option when bills have risen is to increase your pricing to increase profit. However, the hospitality industry isn't the only thing being hit right now, with rising costs the majority of the UK is struggling. The public are looking for cheap options and with a restaurant increasing pricing, it's not going to be the cheap choice.
By owning up to the struggles your business is facing, it shows customers you are treating them like adults and actively owning your price increase and validating why it's happening. It will also make customers realise you as a business are not taking advantage of the cost increase and simply hiking up your costs because you can, but rather because you need to in order to stay open.
Monitoring Waste
Rising prices means that accurately monitoring waste is now more important than ever. To ensure you're managing stock to the best of your ability, you need a smart EPoS system that can record stock and waste and provide full reports.
With an all-in-one SPARK EPoS Solution you can track all business data, which will provide you with detailed reports. Within Stock Management, a key feature to use is Stock Forecasting, by keeping accurate levels your business can more efficiently forecast the amount of stock needed for future days. Using this data allows your business to ensure the most accurate amount of stock is ordered, which will ultimately reduce waste and costs. Another key feature of Stock Management which will assist your business is Stock Reports, where variances between your projected and actual stock levels will be highlighted. With this insight you can make changes where needed to ensure wastage is at an all time low.
Managing Staff When Wages Are Rising
When running a hospitality business there is often a hard choice between having enough staff and paying wages. Having too many staff members can be a huge waste of profits so sometimes the difficult choice must be made. With everything becoming more costly, the last thing you want to do is lay someone off. Before doing so, a business needs to ensure it's using the staff it has to the best of its ability.
By implementing a smart staff scheduling tool you can ensure you're using your staff to their full potential. With SPARK Staff Scheduling, you can pull together sales data to pinpoint which days are understaffed and overstaffed. By using this data you can more efficiently disperse staff across workdays, ensuring your staff are working when you really need them and not adding to costs when you don't. With Staff Scheduling, we can help you improve and digitise your team management process so you can save money while also improving team performance, satisfaction, and commitment.
Sourcing Local Produce
Acquiring produce hasn't been easy for some businesses over the past two years. With Brexit changing trading guidelines, a lack of HGV drivers to deliver goods, then the Ukrainian war affecting produce like grains and oil. This may be something your business has already implemented or considered but sourcing produce locally could be a cost efficient option.
What may have previously been a more costly option could now ultimately save your business money. The cost of outsourcing produce was previously most likely the cheaper option but with the occurring issues and potential rising costs, it may be worth switching to more local produce.
Another question to ask yourself is whether it's worth changing supplies. There may have been a time when the supplier you chose offered great deals but have probably now upped their prices too. Go through your Business Expenditure and ensure you're paying the cheapest price for everything.
Increase Social Outreach
Does your business have a social media presence? If you're not active on social media within the hospitality industry then you really need to be. By presenting your food in an aesthetically appealing way and sharing these photographs across social media channels you can show people how good your food looks and it might just be enough to entice customers to your venue. Being on social media channels isn't just an opportunity to provide owned media but to also collect earned media. Recommendations and Reviews can be the ultimate choice on where someone goes for a meal. So get yourself on social media and share those belly rumbling photos of your food.
Offering Discounts and Deals
You may be asking yourself, these are supposed to be money saving tips, how can I be offering discounts and deals? It's simple, by offering discounts and deals you'll hopefully see a surge in sales. Offering a meal deal or discount could attract more customers than you would usually have. By analysing reports and analytics you can see all the data you need to work out what discount or deal you can offer customers to ensure enough profit is made.
Ultimately everyone has been affected in some way by prices increasing but sadly its only just the beginning. A second annual increase in energy prices has been forecast in October 2022 and could be as high as 46%. We recommend using the summer months when your energy costs may decrease to plan for winter. Use this time to implement these tips and see how it affects your business then make a plan regarding the coming months to ensure your business will manage.
Contact Us to find out how we can help your business save money.
