Objectives of Production Control
- To ensure that all drinks are prepared according to management’s specifications
- Take into account the tastes of expected customers
- To guard against excessive costs that can develop in the production process
- Management’s desire to prepare drinks of appropriate quality and size
Standards must be established for the quantities of ingredients used in drink preparation, as well as for the proportions of ingredients in a drink. In addition, drink sizes must be standardized. When standards are set for ingredients, proportions, and drink sizes, customers can have some reasonable assurance that a drink will meet expectations each time it is ordered. Once these standards have been established and procedures have been developed for training employees to follow them, they can be adhered to even in the face of a high rate of employee turnover.
By establishing and maintaining these standards, managers also establish a means for controlling costs. When drinks are prepared by formula and served in standard portion sizes, one portion of any drink prepared (e.g., a daiquiri) should cost the same as every other portion of that same drink. In addition, because the sales prices for drinks are fixed, the cost – to – sales ratio for one portion of any drink should be the same as the cost – to – sales ratio for every other portion of that drink. If this is true, the cost – to – sales ratio for the overall operation should be reasonably stable, provided that sales remain relatively constant.
Simply stated, once standards and standard procedures for beverage production have been established, it becomes possible to develop a standard cost percent for operation with which the actual cost percent can be compared.
Establishing Quantity Standards and Standard Procedures
a means of measuring those quantities.
Most drinks prepared with spirits are a combination of one kind of liquor and a mixer. Scotch and soda, gin and tonic, rye and ginger ale, and rum and cola are all examples of this type of drink.
A manager must determine in advance the specific quantity of the expensive ingredient — the liquor — that a bartender should use to prepare any drink. The amount varies from bar to bar, but most have identified quantities that fall between two extremes — as little as three – quarters of an ounce in some bars to as much as 2.
This quantity standard is established in advance by the manager and is the fixed quantity that will be given to a customer in return for the fixed sales price of a drink. This is not to say that each type of drink should contain the same amount of liquor as every other drink. Clearly, this should not be the case.
For example, management may specify that 1 ounce is the standard measurement for mixed drinks, but cocktails such as martinis follow a recipe that calls for 2 ounces of gin or vodka. Once the quantity standard is established, managers must provide bartenders with a means for measuring this quantity each time a drink is prepared. One must keep in mind that wines, spirits, and some mixers are purchased in metric units, but bartenders preparing drinks measures the ingredients in ounces.