CALCMENU - Making the business profitable with the right culinary solution.

After using the online demo of CALCMENU, you decided that it is the recipe management solution you needed and decided to buy CALCMENU. EGS sends you CALCMENU in DVD form together with the user manual. You install CALCMENU in your computer but, you are confused as to where to start. Here I will explain how to go about in starting to use CALCMENU. First, you need to configure your CALCMENU . Go to Configuration> Options and Preferences . This is where you set up the basic information you will use in the CALCMENU program itself and in managing your recipes. The Options dialog box displays the several information that you can configure. You can define your preferences for the general and default information, nutrients, picture, currency, import and contact. Define all the information that you will use in CALCMENU. For example, if you are using English as the language of the program, then select English in the General tab. Metric or Imperial? If you want to use kilograms, grams, li...

The USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) recently introduced a new eating guide called MyPlate which replaces the decades-old Food Guide Pyramid. MyPlate is a plate icon sliced into four to represent different food groups. Each colored section is for fruits, vegetables, grains and proteins. A circle icon for dairy is also included in the new guide. MyPlate encourages people to eat more fruits and veggies (should be half of your meal) and reduce sodium-rich soups, bread and frozen meals. The release of a new eating guide is part of the US’ movement to deal with the obesity problem in America. US First Lady Michelle Obama says “ This is a quick, simple reminder for all of us to be more mindful of the foods that we're eating .”* To know more about MyPlate, you can check out this website: http://www.choosemyplate.gov/ . * Reuters.com

Restaurant menus may easily be dismissed as a mere list of food selections until one takes a look at the true power it holds in making or breaking the success of any restaurant business.  The menu directly reflects your restaurant’s personality and concept, and is a major factor in its profitability. It is actually the strongest and most consistent internal-marketing tool your restaurant employs. The menu is the only advertising material for your restaurant that you can be a 100% sure will be read by the guest and will directly influence them on their food choices, as well as the amount of money that will be spent.   Thus, aside from remarkable dishes and ambiance, a well-designed and well-engineered menu should also be on top of a restaurant’s priority list. Treat the menu as if your entire food business depends on it because it really does! Ample planning and research on customer demographics and pyschographics should be done as they directly ...

Along with the advent of “cloud computing” which transforms software from products to more of a service and enables the sharing of resources and information on a wider level, software companies have also began developing software with the same concept and which offers the same convenience.  This type of software is slowly making its way into both small- and large businesses’ systems or even homes. At first thought, such software would seem impractical and costly. But frankly, it’s the opposite. Allow me to give you the facts on this new software technology, Software as a Service, as well as on its perks. Software as a Service veers away from the typical software in a sense that instead of the all-too-familiar setup where you buy, install and use, this software would only require you to avail of a service access, connect and use.  This is because the software that you are using is not actually installed on your computer (thus no confusing installation procedures, installe...

For the first part of this entry, click here . source: dailyspark.com 4. CALCMENU Pro and CALCMENU Enterprise allow you to adjust the nutrient/allergen content in a certain food product/dish. This is handy when you want to make changes in your recipes without altering its quality. Let’s say for instance you found out that a certain recipe has quite high sodium content, you may modify this recipe’s sodium content to fit the diet requirement or taste of your customer. Flexibility in your recipes, i.e. being able to adjust your recipes to help improve the nutrient content in meals, will be beneficial in the long run as nutrient and mineral requirements may change over time. This can be aptly demonstrated by a study conducted in 2004 by Donald Davis, PhD, a former researcher for the Biochemical Institute of the University of Texas, Austin. His findings show that there has been a decline of up to 50% in many minerals, vitamins and nutrients sourced from fruits and vegeta...

Last week, we have talked about the importance of nutrient and allergen management tools like EGS CALCMENU and EGS F&B Control, for foodservice professionals. We have concluded that such tools are an effective way to keep up with the growing need of informing consumers of the nutrient and allergen content in food products and in improving nutrient and allergen management in the food industry. This week, we have listed down the various ways on how these tools, specifically EGS CALCMENU and EGS F&B Control help in ensuring reliable nutrient and allergen management. 1. CALCMENU Pro and CALCMENU Enterprise automatically provide nutritional information for your recipes and menus. Each recipe’s nutritional content can be easily calculated to up to 12 nutritional values that you have chosen from several databases or references such as USDA (American reference), BLS (German) and ASA (Swiss).  Nutrient Tab in CALCMENU Enterprise containing the nutrient information of...

Nowadays, it is not enough for customers to just pick out any dish in a menu. Most of them make it a point to know what is in the dish—sometimes even demanding a detailed listing of the ingredients. It is a more vigilant approach to what you eat that can make a big difference in keeping yourself in the pink of health. More and more health-conscious people keep track of each nutrient they take in, making sure that each intake is only within the recommended daily serving allowance. Others however, need to be more particular with the ingredients in their meal due to possible presence of allergens. Allergens are substances in food that cause an adverse reaction, usually affecting the immune system. Virtually all allergens are proteins and can be present in large amounts and most often, survive food-processing conditions. If no extra care is made, ingestion of even a small amount, sometimes less than a milligram (e.g. a tiny fragment of almond or two sesame seeds) can lead to an ups...

In this time of economic uncertainty, when there is a growing market of individuals who are conscious about their purchases, it is best that your businesses have cutting-edge approaches to maximize profits in order to survive. In the food business today, having a list of regular customers is not enough to remain successful. One needs a well-performed sales mix analysis and pricing strategies to keep the food business thriving. EGS has over 20 years of experience in providing chefs, restaurateurs, hospital professionals and caterers with solutions to increase their productivity, profit margin and work- efficiency.Through these we have been committed to quality, reliability and drive to provide the best possible tools in improving the way food-service business are handled.One of these latest developments in our solutions is the Menu Engineering module. Menu Engineering It is likely that executive chefs know the simple costs of particular dishes in their menu, but most do not really hav...

It is undeniable that successful companies are those that are able to maintain at least 28-35% of their food costs, on the average, where at least 50% to 70% of their total sales are spent on food inventories, consumption as well as labor costs . Because of the impact that food costs has on the overall profitability of a food service company, one must be able to manage it carefully in order to increase profits by avoiding losses. You are probably thinking: “So how can we control our food cost?” There are many ways to do so but two of the most effective ways are to control your inventory and look into your menu pricing strategy . You may have received a good deal from your suppliers by ordering in bulk, however, think about this: you may be tying in your cash flow or store room for paying and stacking an inventory that may end up just sitting in your stock room for a long period of time. Or inversely, you may have also experienced scrambling and pulling your hair out as you scramble fo...