Baked Brie en Croute with Minor's® Blackberry Balsamic Sauce
Holiday Sales Are On
(Even When Students Are Off)
Although many college foodservice departments close down their operations—or run skeleton services—during holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, that doesn’t preclude the potential for taking advantage of this celebratory season entirely. You just have to get creative.
For example: The University of New Hampshire, in Durham hosts more than 20 events throughout the year, tied to holidays as well as “just-because” events. These include the annual Winter Celebration, Thanksgiving Feast, Halloween Beast Feast, and Apple Harvest Festival, as well as Valentine’s Day and Patriots Tailgate Party to celebrate New England’s much-loved football team. Events consist not only of special menus, but also decorations, entertainment, costumes, and special contests to boost participation.
Many of these over-the-top events mark holidays that actually occur when the school is closed, but they’re held before the fact so students can celebrate with their friends before heading home. Last year’s Winter Celebration featured a special menu in mid-December showcasing prime ribeye roast and special sweets like a Yule log, gingerbread house, chocolate fondue, and other specialty baked goods.
In addition, parents are encouraged to avail themselves of the Send a Smile program which allows them to send their kids a cake or other baked goods, as well as gift cards for on-campus services, for birthdays, holidays, and other special events.
Special holiday meals are easier to pull off than what Meadowood and the Hotel Hershey are doing, yet still capture the holiday spirit. If you’re located in a mall or downtown shopping area, what about creating an express lunch to pull in holiday shoppers? Consider a Sunday Supper menu that represents time for family to share a relaxing meal during a busy season. Investigate Happy Hour opportunities that will attract office works who want to get together to mark the occasion.
Boost Sales with Catering
Holidays are a good time to reach out to the local community, if your administration allows it, as well as to teachers, staff, and administrators, and the families of students.
Catering has helped to offset sales slumps in noncommercial locations of all types, according to a recent article in
FoodService Director, from cultural venues to colleges and university facilities. Catering, in fact, is big business in colleges: 21% of respondents say catering represents more than 30% of their overall revenue. Average annual sales from catering were $2.6 million in 2009, according to the magazine’s most recent College Dining Census.
For example: Scripps Catering, operated by the Dining Services department serving Scripps College in Claremont, CA, provides service both on- and off-campus (on-campus venues include Malott Commons, the Margaret Fowler Garden, and the Performing Arts Center); events held during times when students are off on holidays are subject to additional labor charges. The standard menu includes a full variety of upscale items, including more than 60 different hot and cold passed hors d'oeuvres and display appetizers (such as Baked Brie en Croute, smoked salmon pinwheels, and mini crab cakes) as well as holiday-worthy entrées like rack of lamb and beef tenderloin.
Catering doesn't need to be the whole thing from food to tent rental and flowers, however. In fact, the economy is affecting catering the same way it has restaurants, and many noncommercial foodservice departments are re-engineering their menus, pricing, and portions.
For example: At New York University, an urban school with many commuter students, Dining Services has created all-inclusive packages this year. These value-priced menus for holiday events feature pasta, carving, and stir-fry stations to create a "wow" effect, with traditional foods that have been given a creative twist, such as pumpkin ravioli. And with chefs from the Pacific Rim, Latin America, and Europe as befits its pan-cultural location, Dining Services also has been incorporating many holiday foods from their home countries onto its menus.
Many operators have gotten into hybrid catering/takeout programs in which customers can pick up larger-volume amounts of some or all of their holiday meals, from a turkey or ham to hors d'oeuvres, breads or rolls, side dishes, and desserts
Ideas for Building Your Holiday Business
- Sell paper goods like tablecloths and disposable plates along with food, as either an at-cost convenience or with a profit-making markup
- If you have the resources, provide delivery of platters and other self-service items
- Offer fruit baskets, muffin trays, attractive boxes loaded with cookies, or housemade truffles . . . customers are always looking for gift ideas or items to take to a hostess. Other items could include local specialty foods and artisanal products like cheeses, jams and jellies, maple syrup, and so on
- Make sure local papers and magazines know what you’ll be offering; most newspapers and city magazines do roundups of what’s going on around town
- Bring samples of baked goods or other delicious edibles to department chair secretaries, group leaders, last year's clients—anyone who might want to order holiday catering—along with a menu, flyer, or order form
Embrace Time-Saving Measures
The holidays can be an especially busy time—if you’re lucky. Now is an excellent time to turn to high-quality prepared foods and speed-scratch methods to help you and your staff get through the crunch. This is especially true if you’re ramping up your services to include takeout, holiday parties or themed dinners.
The best speed-scratch items can be true signature starters: Simply add your own ingredients and presentation flourishes to create a unique offering.
Consider gravy, the workhorse of many holiday and cool-weather menus. Start with any Trio® gravy mix and take a creative approach:
- Substitute wine, cider, stock, spirits or another liquid for the water when preparing the mix
- Add fresh herbs or spices, sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions or roasted garlic for more body and flavor
- Mix with another sauce, such as Stouffer's® Marinara, to create a rich pasta sauce
A selection of gravies and sauces is particularly nice at a carving station on a buffet, in the servery or at catered events, offering patrons an opportunity to customize their meal.
Save Even More Time with These Tips
- Investigate using texting or email to help employees schedule and exchange shifts during this busy period
- Contract with a local restaurant to take over a station in your cafeteria or a mobile cart in your library for a set fee or a percentage of sales: Customers get variety; the restaurant gets additional exposure; and you get the dual benefit of one less station to worry about without completely giving up revenue
- Use holiday-time special menus to product-test items for the rest of the cold-weather season; recipes that are big hits are or especially profitable or easy on the kitchen can become part of the regular menu
- Urge employees to stay well and help them with every possible resource: flu shots, safe work conditions, an opportunity to rotate shifts for time off. The last thing you need right now is a sick staff