3 Strategies to Pivot Supply Chain Issues

Tags: Innovation | Operational Effectiveness

December 30, 2021

Raise your hand if you’re dealing with supply chain issues. As we suspected, all your hands are up. Recently, EVP of Public Affairs Sean Kennedy cited 95% of restaurants have suffered "significant" shipping delays and shortages of key food supplies because of bottlenecks in the industry pipeline in a letter to President Biden.¹

We feel your frustration. We know it won’t fix everything but wanted to encourage you to take that frustration and use it to fuel menu creativity. Take a deep breath, a step back, and look at menu changes through the following three lenses. While these changes won’t be perfect replacements for what’s missing, you’ll be able to create buzz around new or refashioned items to grow traffic and sales. Focus your marketing efforts on the latest menu additions to generate excitement and lessen the blow that a menu favorite is currently unavailable.

New Formats

Focus on what you do have on hand or what you can get in stock and reinvent best-selling dishes in a different format. Here are a few examples:

If steaks are a menu favorite but rising cost of goods or supply chain issues are making it hard to have them on hand, lessen the portion size by menuing them as produce-heavy kabobs. Guests will still get the same great steak flavor, and you can make the fruit and/or vegetables exciting with unique sauces or seasonings. Check out these kabobs for Latin-flavored inspiration.
Take your best selling sandwiches and expand the flavor profile into other areas like salads, loaded fries, or pastas.
Give as much detail to mocktails as you do to cocktails if liquor has been scarce in your state. No Shirley Temples allowed! Infusing, smoking, spicing, and muddling bring elevated touches to non-alcoholic beverages.
Are your cookies the best? Develop a whole line of cookie desserts like skillet cookies, cream-filled sandwiches, or cookie ice cream sandwiches.

New Preparation:

Switch up the way you prepare various foods you do have in stock. New techniques can grant novel flavor or texture to standard ingredients.

Grill vegetables to create elevated, plant-forward dishes like these Grilled Portobello Mushrooms with Avocado Chimichurri.
Create interesting breadings for the “meat” of your dishes, whether animal or plant-based, like in our Chicken Gravy Chicken Sandwich.
Spiral cut vegetables to create plant-based noodles like the sweet potatoes and carrots in this Root Vegetable Primavera.

New Flavors:

Pick a ready-to-use, trend-forward sauce that’s versatile enough to flavor a line of new items such as a sandwich, taco, and bowl. Focus on the interesting sauce flavor in your marketing messages and ask consumers to try it each way. We have several options when it comes to these handy sauces along with the signature menu items they can create. For a full list of sauces, click here.

We hope you can see the glass half full and approach menu changes as new opportunities. We’re here to help you weather the storm and come out on the other side stronger and more creative than ever. If there’s anything else we can help you with, don’t hesitate to contact us.

¹ Restaurant Business Online, Restaurant Industry Presses Biden to Address Its Supply Chain Woes, November 2021