Menu Planning and Design: Meeting Needs, Profitability & Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of menu development, planning, and design within the hospitality industry, focusing on The Fat Duck restaurant in the UK. It covers key principles of menu planning and design, emphasizing the importance of meeting customer and business requirements to maximize profitability. The report compares different menu types, such as A La Carte, Du Jour, and Static menus, and discusses how customer preferences and business needs impact menu design. It also delves into the critical aspects of menu costing and pricing, highlighting considerations for setting prices and justifying them to customers. Furthermore, the report outlines a realistic plan for menu development, incorporating customer needs and profitability goals, and provides recommendations for improvement based on menu testing and evaluation. Desklib is a valuable resource for students seeking similar solved assignments and study tools.

Menu Development
Planning and Design

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Principles of menu planning & designing for meeting customer/ business requirements 1
P2 Customer and business requirements which need to be fulfilled to maximise profits for a
range of different menus.........................................................................................................3
M1 Compare and contrast a range of different menus and the customer and business
requirements...........................................................................................................................4
D1 Impact of customer and business requirement on design of a broad range of menu and
make recommendations to meet future trends........................................................................5
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................6
P3 key considerations for costing dishes and menu...............................................................6
P4 Produce accurately costed and priced menu.....................................................................9
M2 Approaches to menu costing and pricing and use effective method to analyse the price and
costing of menu....................................................................................................................13
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................14
P5/ M3 Develop a realistic plan of menu in order to meet the needs to customers to enhance
the profitability.....................................................................................................................14
P6 Produce a menu which meets customer and business requirement.................................15
P7 Provide a Test and assess the shaped menu....................................................................17
M4 Make justified recommendations for improvement based on test and evaluation of the
menu.....................................................................................................................................18
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................18
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................18
Online-...........................................................................................................................................19

INTRODUCTION
The hospitality industry is one of the fastest growing industry in the world and in
context of UK, it is dynamic in nature and it is recorded that the highest investment is made
in this industry during Brexit situation (HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY IN THE UNITED
KINGDOM - GROWTH, TRENDS, COVID-19 IMPACT, AND FORECASTS (2022 – 2027),
2022). The investment in the industry has seen higher in the year 2018 and the effective
investment help the hotels to enhance their performance. The Fat Duck, UK is founded in
the year 1995 by Heston Blumenthal and the head chef of this restaurant is Edward Cooke.
It is located in High Street, Bray, Berkshire, England, UK (The Fat Duck, 2022). The
following report will cover principles of menu planning, customer and business requirement
from restaurant, realistic plan to develop a menu to meet customer and business requirement
and menu designing for the mentioned restaurant.
Task 1
P1 Principles of menu planning & designing for meeting customer/ business requirements
It is one of the most important thing for a restaurant to design their menu in such a
manner which will help them to fulfil the requirements of their customers to make them
satisfied (Ho and et. al., 2021). A menu is a means of communication between restaurants
and customers which will specify the dishes of the restaurants which they can offer to their
customers. In simple words, the menu is the list of items which can be offered by the
restaurants to their customers. Most of the restaurant including The Fat Duck try to prepare
their menu attractive so that customers will easily understand the items and prices
mentioned in the same menu. There are various factors which can affect menu planning and
designing to meet customer requirement such as type of customer and age group, religious
rules, meat or non-meat preferences, competition, price of the dishes and many others (Basic
principles of menu planning, 2021). in context of The Fat Duck restaurant, they are mainly
focus to satisfy their customers with the effective menu, taste of their food and effective
services to offer the food on dining tables of customers.
1

Principles of menu planning and designing-
Strive for balance- This principle of menu designing includes that the food dishes
mentioned in the menu must have proper vitamins, proteins, minerals and other nutrients. It
should not happen that the customer's health gets impacted bad after consuming the food
dish of the mentioned restaurant.
Consider colour- In context of menu designing, the restaurants must add colours in
their menu list to make it attractive and the background image will also impact
psychologically upon customers. For example, using red, yellow and orange colour in menu
will be beneficial for the restaurant because it makes customers feeling hungrier (Color
Psychology in Food Marketing, 2016).
Includes variety- It is also one of the most important menu designing principle for
the restaurants. In context of The Fat Duck, they must include huge options in the variety of
food items in their menu to make it attractive. Different types of beverages, start-ups,
snacks, main food courses and etc.
Different types of menu-
A La Carte menu- This menu type lists the prices of each food dish separated in the
menu and the prices in the menu is tend to be higher (Tucker and Sun, 2018). Here,
2

customers can choose individual item or a combination of items whichever they feel
comfortable. This type of menu derived from France
Du Jour Menu- This is the menu which consist of food dishes on daily basis. It
further means that the restaurant mentions their food dishes for different days of a week on
the white board or a digital board to aware their customers that which food dish will be
prepared on which day of week. This menu type is commonly used by small restaurants.
Static menu- This type of menu is divided into categories that did not change for
longer period of time. This is the most common menu type used by most of the restaurants
(Types of Menu: Different Menu Types in Restaurants 2021, 2021). The does not change
often means that the customer experience is constant for the specific restaurant.
P2 Customer and business requirements which need to be fulfilled to
maximise profits for a range of different menus
It is essential for The Fat Duck restaurant to conduct marketing research on regular basis to
analyse the needs and requirement of their targeted customers from their restaurant so that
they will serve them those food dishes and services which will help the restaurant to gain
their high satisfaction level for organisational profit. Few of the customers and business
requirements are mentioned below-
Customer requirements-
Start- ups- Most of the customers of restaurants are expecting a start-up food and
beverages before their main order. Once a customer enters the restaurant and have a seat
then waiters ask their main orders (Kashef and et. al., 2021). After taking customers main
order, kitchen department work to prepare that order but customers can be given soup, juices
or other light eatable products as the start-up at free of cost so that they will not wait for
longer period of time for their main courses of orders. This customer requirement is also one
of the most trending requirement in food and beverages sector of hospitality industry.
Hence, this requirement can be fulfilled by static menu type of the restaurant. This can be
help the restaurant to attract more customers and gain higher profit.
Variety of food products- This is also one of the most common trending
requirement of the customers in food and beverages sector. Here, customers choose those
restaurants only which have huge variety of items in their menu so that they have more
option to choose their favourite combos. Customers also expect to know prices of each food
3

dish so that they will make purchase decision that which combo of food dishes will cover
within their budget. Hence, this customer requirement can be fulfilled by static menu type of
The Fat Duck restaurant. Customers get more attracted to those restaurants where they will
find large variety of products and clear prices of their eatable items. Hence, fulfilling this
requirement will help the mentioned hotel to gain high profit.
Business requirements-
Experience and training needs of staff- This is one of the basic requirement of any
business that their staff members will help the organisation to earn high profit with their
experience and skills (Huang, Lin and Lu, 2018). In context of The Duck Restaurant, they
can hire skilled and experienced cooks and serving staff members who have appropriate
knowledge to communicate with customers. They are also required to train their existing
employees on regular basis to enhance their skills for organisational benefit to earn more
profit.
The equipment’s and facilities available- It is essential for The Fat Duck restaurant
to focus on their available resources and the supervisor or manager of the restaurant must
monitor whether the cooks are having all kinds of knifes, vegetables, fruits and many other
requirements to prepare food dishes at their kitchen area or not. It is also essential for the
restaurant to follow all business legislations related to their industry. For example, Health
and Safety at Work Act 1974 states that the employers must focus on the factors and
requirements of the employees related to their health and safety measures at workplace.
Like, having fire extinguisher and medical kit at kitchen area and dining area is important
for the restaurants.
M1 Compare and contrast a range of different menus and the customer and
business requirements
A rigid menu refers to different food item of menu that are offered by the restaurant in
their day to day serving of food. The other side of cycle menu is the one in which the serial
order of menu is written along with the prices of respective products (Tsangas and et. al.,
2020). There are two types of menus that are offered by the restaurant that are daily menu
and weekly menu. Both of these menus are essential and holds importance in the hospitality
of the restaurant. It helps in creating clarity as the restaurant is able to clearly communicate
the food items that are available in the restaurant. Further the restaurant must come up with
4

an interesting and attractive menu so that more and more customers get attracted to the food
that is available in the restaurant. The designing must be based on the preference of the
consumer so that the customers get their needs and demand fulfilled. The foremost page of
the fat duck should consist of food items that are common and famous. This will help in
maximizing the revenue of the company as the customer will easily be able to find the food
item that he/she is looking for.
D1 Impact of customer and business requirement on design of a broad range of menu and
make recommendations to meet future trends
Customer and business requirements impacts huge upon deciding design of the menu
for the restaurant. For example, in case the customers require to choose their preference
after comparing huge variety of food dishes then the restaurant must use static menu which
will fulfil the customer requirement to make purchase decision from large variety of food
dishes (Jiang and Ma, 2020). On the other hand, in case customers prefer to eat different
food products on different days of the week then restaurant can use Du Jour menu type. In
case of business requirement such s experience and skills of cook will also help the
restaurant to design their menu. For example, restaurant is required to analyse which dishes
can be prepared by their cooks and which dishes they did not prefer to cook well to satisfy
their customers so that the menu will only mention those dishes which can be prepared by
their cooks effectively. It is recommended to the mentioned restaurant that they must
conduct marketing research on regular basis to analyse current trend in their industry and
aware and train their employees well regarding current trend so that they will try their best
to satisfy their customers with the trend.
5

Task 2
P3 key considerations for costing dishes and menu
The Fat Duck, UK is founded in the year 1995 by Heston Blumenthal and the head chef of
this restaurant is Edward Cooke. It is located in High Street, Bray, Berkshire, England, UK
(The Fat Duck, 2022). The following PPT cover key considerations for costing dishes and
menu and an accurate costing and pricing menu.
6

In context of The Fat Duck, they are not supposed to set very high prices and in case they
are setting high prices then they must provide justification to their customers that why they
are having prices and the justification should be fully evidenced.
7

For example, a food dish requires $20 of cost then the restaurant will mention $25 or above
in the menu because they have added their profit earnings ratio which the customer have to
pay.
In context of The Fat Duck, they can add service charges but they must focus to keep their
service charges as low as possible because high service charges may influence customers to
use other restaurant services.
8

P4 Produce accurately costed and priced menu.
9

10