Tips for Transporting Catering Food

Posted on May 16, 2012 by jsellers
Tips for Transporting Catering Food

The proper equipment and supplies are necessary to transport delicate food items while maintaining the proper temperature and complying with health codes for food transport.

As a caterer, you face a challenge that most people in the foodservice industry don’t have to worry about: transporting catering food to an offsite location. The proper equipment and supplies are necessary to transport delicate food items while maintaining the proper temperature and complying with health codes for food transport. Here are some tips for transporting catering food the next time you’re catering an event.

Prepare as much as possible before transporting catering food. Your kitchen has all the equipment you need to slice produce, cut bread and cook meat. Do as much as you can before loading your vehicle to prevent a hectic setup offsite.

Comply with health codes. In general, most local health codes require that you transport food in a cleanable vehicle, and that you keep dishes at the proper temperature during transport (below 40 degrees F for cold food and above 140 degrees F for hot food).

Choose proper food and cutlery transport equipment. Totes and cartons make it easy to transport glassware and dishes without breaking. When transporting catering food that needs to stay hot or cold, disposable food pans can be used. Insulated food carriers are also useful to ensure safe food temperature.

Transport with a partner. If you have any single item that is large and awkward, such as a wedding cake, get the help of a staff member or fellow caterer to help load and unload the delicate cargo.

Create a transportation checklist. Transferring large amounts of food can easily result in a mix up. Create a checklist to prevent leaving anything behind. Refer to this list a few hours before the event to ensure everything is in order, and again when you load the food and supplies in the vehicle. Check the list again as items are unloaded at the event.

Drive carefully. A mess and ruined food can result from braking hard, turning sharply and going over speed bumps too quickly. Drive with extreme caution to ensure everything arrives safely. If need be, you can always turn on the vehicle’s emergency flashers and drive well below the speed limit when transporting catering food. Make sure you allow plenty of time so you can enjoy a stress-free drive to the event.

Look at the supplies offered by Candle Lamp to make food transportation easier than ever the next time you’re catering an event.

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Restaurant Management Tips – Mistakes to Avoid as a Restaurant Manager

Posted on May 10, 2012 by jsellers
Restaurant Management Tips – Mistakes to Avoid as a Restaurant Manager

Create the proper atmosphere to help your customers leave happier than they were when they arrived.

By implementing some useful restaurant management tips, you can become a more effective manager, create a solid loyal customer base and ultimately increase the bottom line of your business. Being a restaurant manager is challenging and requires numerous skills. The following are mistakes you should avoid as you grow accustomed to your management position and prove yourself to your employees and customers.

Don’t neglect customer service. Even if you’re inwardly frustrated and don’t agree with complaints, handle customer service situations with the utmost courtesy and professionalism if you want the customers’ repeat business..

Don’t let the menu become stagnant. Keep all the old favorites, but don’t hesitate to change out a less popular dish for a new one to see if you can draw new customers. This restaurant management tip also means you need to monitor the restaurant’s cash flow and change menu prices when necessary.

Don’t ignore opportunities to save money. Small changes—such as choosing more efficient light bulbs and installing low-flow faucets—can save money without impacting the customer experience at your restaurant.

Don’t let your employees do all the dirty work. Get out of the office and join your employees on the floor. Take a few orders, bus a few tables and clean a few toilets. This is one of the most useful restaurant management tips because working alongside your employees helps them gain respect for their leader.

Don’t forget to reward your employees. It can be difficult for your employees to work hard day in and day out without recognition. Offer “Employee of the Month” rewards, bonuses and other acknowledgements that let your employees know how much you appreciate their hard work. Doing so will boost productivity and morale.

Don’t overlook the importance of setting a mood for your customers. The quality of your restaurant’s food is only one part of the customer’s experience. Create the proper atmosphere to help your customers leave happier than they were when they arrived. This restaurant management tip promotes a positive feeling that will encourage customers to come back again.

Don’t forget about job expectations and training. Each employee needs to be best at their job if you want your restaurant to run smoothly. However, employees should also be capable of handling any role so you can survive the breakfast, lunch and dinner rushes without breaking a sweat.

Check out Candle Lamp’s YouTube channel where we have great videos filled with restaurant management tips to help you train your servers effectively.

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Green Tips for Restaurants

Posted on May 1, 2012 by jsellers
Green Tips for Restaurants

Organic products can be more expensive, but some items are nearly equal in cost to ingredients that aren’t organic. Start by offering an organic menu item or two.

If you understand the dangers of global warming and pollution, you will appreciate these green tips for restaurants. Americans are disproportionately responsible for a huge amount of pollution in the world. In fact, if the rest of the world consumed and wasted the way Americans do, we would need more than 5 Earths to sustain everyone.  It’s clear that now is the time for restaurant owners like you to become more responsible to fight waste, pollution, and global warming.

As you begin implementing green tips for restaurants, keep in mind that your efforts may not take immediate effect. You will need to take small steps toward a greener restaurant until, months down the road, all your goals are finally met. Here are some green tips for restaurants that you can gradually implement into your business.

  • Invest in eco-friendly candles and supplies: Rechargeable candles are better for the environment than candles you simply use once and dispose of. Other supplies such as reusable cutlery, cloth napkins, and air hand dryers in the bathroom cut back on paper waste.
  • Stop using Styrofoam. Take-out boxes, soup bowls, and coffee cups are often made of Styrofoam, which never biodegrades. Heed these environmentally-friendly reminders for restaurants and switch to recyclable containers instead, such as cardboard boxes.
  • Add organic items to the menu. Organic products can be more expensive, but some items are nearly equal in cost to ingredients that aren’t organic. Start by offering an organic menu item or two. You can even charge more to over your extra costs. If the item grows in popularity because of the improved taste and healthier qualities, you can branch out and offer more organic options.
  • Buy food locally. Purchase from local vendors and farmers markets. You can even venture so far as to grow your own ingredients on the roof! California and other warm-climate restaurants may appear to have more options, but eateries in colder climates like Chicago or New York can still grow some of their own produce onsite.
  • Conserve water. Fix leaks in the kitchen/bathroom and install water-saving faucets. Run your dishwashers only when they are completely full. After all, you pay just as much to wash dishes in a full dishwasher as you do a half-empty one.
  • Stay on top of maintenance. Tighten hinges and replace seals on ovens and freezer doors to help reduce energy waste in these areas. Keep refrigerator condenser coils clean to prevent overheating, and simply make sure all your equipment is properly maintained.
  • Buy energy-efficient products and equipment. When a piece of equipment needs to be replaced, choose an energy-efficient model to reduce energy consumption. Change wasteful incandescent bulbs with more efficient fluorescent lights.
  • Make deliveries more eco-friendly. If your restaurant makes food deliveries, choose hybrid vehicles instead of gas guzzlers to transport the food. Walk the food to its destination whenever possible.

These green tips for restaurants are just a few environmentally-friendly reminders for restaurants that you can begin working on right away. Soon, you’ll see your bottom line decrease as your energy consumption and waste decline. Plus, you’ll know you’re doing your part for the Earth when you implement these green tips for restaurants.

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Preventing Food Waste

Posted on April 28, 2012 by jsellers
Preventing Food Waste

While consumers at home might not be tossing half our food in the garbage can or down the drain, restaurants and grocery stores contribute to huge amounts of waste every day.

A study published in 2004 made it obvious that Americans need to put a greater focus on preventing food waste. The USDA-funded study, conducted over 8 years, found that Americans waste half our food. While consumers at home might not be tossing half our food in the garbage can or down the drain, restaurants and grocery stores contribute to huge amounts of waste every day. In the end, preventing food waste when catering an event contributes to a better environment—plus you can enjoy a great deal of savings for your catering business at the same time.

With Earth Day coming up, it’s important that you learn ways of preventing food waste in your business. The trick is to become familiar with these techniques and utilize them as much as possible.

  • Avoid over-preparation. The first step to preventing food waste is purchasing only the amount you’ll need. When it comes to catering an event, you can control the amount of food you supply down to the last meatball or strawberry. Make sure your client has asked for RSVPs, and then provide food for slightly more people to ensure you don’t actually run out.
  • Store food properly before and during the event. Make your purchases close to the event date and keep perishables stored at 40 degrees or lower so nothing spoils in advance. Then, use the proper catering tools to keep food safe to eat during the event. A folding chafing dish, like the KD Heater and Candle Lamp chafing fuel, is perfect for keeping hot dishes at a safe temperature of 140 degrees or higher. This way, the food can be consumed from the portable chafing dish up until the final minute of the event without fear of spoilage and waste.
  • Save leftovers. You may not feel comfortable reheating food from catering an event for a future gathering, but you can certainly allow your client to take home remaining food from the event to consume in the near future. This is a great tactic for preventing food waste and pleasing your client. After all, the food has been paid for and there’s no sense in simply throwing it out if there are eager takers. Even if they don’t want to take the food home, you can donate it to a homeless shelter.
  • Encourage composting. Provide separate garbage cans, dedicating one to compost and another to paper and other kinds of waste. Compost can be converted to fuel to converted to animal feed.

Visit www.candlelamp.com today to discover the catering tools we offer the next time you’re catering an event.

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Safe Heat Chafing Fuel

Posted on April 27, 2012 by jsellers

Chafing fuel plays a critical role in food service because its function is to make sure that food stays warm and safe before serving to guests. Safe Heat Green is the first wick chafing fuel to be endorsed by the Green Restaurant Association. Visit http://www.candlelamp.com and http://www.facebook.com/CandlelampCo to request a sample.

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Restaurant Recycling Guide

Posted on April 24, 2012 by jsellers
Restaurant Recycling Guide

Restaurant Recycling Is Good Business!

Since it takes effort to reduce waste and recycle, you may need to understand the benefits of restaurant recycling before you implement it. Anything you can do in your restaurant to manage your resources and contribute to less waste is beneficial for your business and the community.

One example is to buy rechargeable candles for restaurants that you can use over and over again, instead of throwing away dozens of candles a month. You can also seek out the best chafing fuel, food storage dishes and long-reach lighters for catering purposes that are environmentally friendly.

An essential area that restaurants need to focus on to reduce waste is food preparation and storage. If you have thrown out a large amount of perishable food in the past few weeks, adjust your inventory levels to minimize spoilage and waste. Also make an effort to prepare food to-order when possible so wasteful over-preparation can be avoided.

Here are the benefits you can expect from your restaurant recycling efforts

  • Lower disposal costs. The slower your dumpsters fill up, the less you need to pay for trash pickup.
  • Cash incentives. Your local government may offer an incentive for your restaurant recycling efforts. Plus, recycled products tend to cost $20 to $50 less per ton than conventional dumpster garbage.
  • Fewer purchases required. With reusable items in your inventory, such as rechargeable candles for restaurants, you make fewer purchases and help keep restocking costs down. Other reusable items that support bar and restaurant recycling efforts include cloth napkins, air dryers in restrooms, and reusable cutlery.
  • Restaurant recycling is simply good business! Many of your customers are probably environmentally minded and appreciate your efforts to cut back on waste. That means bar and restaurant recycling can improve your public image, and increase customer loyalty and involvement in your efforts.

Customer involvement is important if you want to have the biggest environmental impact. Place recycling bins where customers can easily see them so they can contribute to your restaurant recycling efforts. This also ensures they know that you’re making an effort, which is also important for boosting your image in the public eye.

Visit us at www.candlelamp.com today to learn more about eco-friendly candles for restaurants and the best chafing fuel to coincide with your recycling efforts.

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Candles For Restaurants And The Importance of Ambiance

Posted on April 19, 2012 by jsellers

Kenny Bowers, the chef of Kenny’s Wood Fire Grill in Dallas, TX discusses the importance of ambiance in his restaurants. He also shows off and introduces Candle Lamp’s new mobile app that is available now in the iTunes store at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mylamp-pro/id505686605?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo=2.

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Candle Lamp App – Free Mobile App and Other Big Announcements

Posted on April 10, 2012 by jsellers
Candle Lamp App – Free Mobile App and Other Big Announcements

Now, using the free mobile app, you can select from over one hundred different candles for restaurants to see how they would look placed on the table.

On March 12, 2012, Candle Lamp introduced a free mobile app for food service professionals to enjoy. The MyLamp Pro mobile app is compatible on iPhones and iPads. If you have trouble visualizing what effect candles would have in your restaurant before making a purchase, this app will be a lifesaver for you! It allows you to preview candles for restaurants before you buy them. That way, chefs can see what they will look like sitting on restaurant tables, wedding planners can envision their centerpieces, and caterers can imagine banquet table decor.

Using the free mobile app is easy! Simply take a seat at a table in your restaurant and push your chair back until you are arm’s length away from the table edge. Position your iPhone or iPad perpendicular to the table so the edge of the table is level with the bottom grid line on your device’s screen. Snap a photo.

Now, using the free mobile app, you can select from over one hundred different candles for restaurants to see how they would look placed on the table. The obvious benefits of using this free mobile app is having the chance to select the perfect candles and supplies before you ever make a purchase; now you’re confident that your selection is a visually-appealing one!

After taking your picture and positioning candles for restaurants in the image, you can save the picture in your gallery for future reference. You can even email the photo to your colleagues for more opinions.

In addition to providing a preview of different lamp styles in your establishment, the MyLamp Pro mobile app provides you with further promotions and discounts from Candle Lamp. You couldn’t ask for a better deal!

Download the free mobile app for iPhone and iPad on iTunes today. Also, beginning April 8, you can buy your favorite candles and supplies directly from www.candlelamp.com. Use the Candle Lamp app to choose the perfect items for your restaurant or catering business before you make your final purchase!

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Window Panes and Dirty Drains: Integrating Non-toxic Chemicals Into Your Cleaning

Posted on April 4, 2012 by jsellers
Eating Low: Sustainable Foods With Low Environmental Impact

The Green Restaurant Association blogs on various topics related to the GRA’s Seven Environmental Categories of Energy, Water, Waste, Chemicals, Food, Packaging, and Building.

Would it ever make sense to use mud to clean a bunch of food that fell on a kitchen floor?  Did you ever see somebody wash her face and hands with dirt?  Did you ever see a carwash that uses grime to clean your car?  Hopefully, the answer to all these questions should be “No.”  That’s because cleaning items with items that are dirty doesn’t make any sense.  But, that is exactly what happens everyday in restaurants, homes, and businesses across the world.

We use chemicals in our daily life that are often toxic, even carcinogenic… in order to “clean” a mess.  We are using “dirty” chemicals to “clean” our lives.  But, what if we came to the conclusion that just as it doesn’t make sense to wash our faces with dirt… it also doesn’t make sense for us to use “dirty” chemicals to “clean” our restaurants?

If we came to that conclusion, then we’d have to find “clean” alternatives that truly clean without “dirty” health and environmental effects.  One of the Green Restaurant Association’s seven environmental categories is Chemical and Pollution Reduction.

It is an important focus for what makes a restaurant on the path towards sustainability.  In that category, there are scores of doable environmental steps that can be taken.  The following is an example of 6 Green Steps that Certified Green Restaurants® can take to use cleaner and safer chemicals:

Step GreenPoints™
Green General Purpose Cleaners 7.75
Green Pest Control 8.25
Zero VOC Paints 2.5
Unbleached Pastry Bags 1.25
Nontoxic warming gel 2.5
Green Hand soaps 1.5

One interesting example is Active ion’s ionator EXP, which literally takes water, adds a small electric charge, and turns that water into general-purpose cleaner and general sanitizer.  Reusable bottles, no chemicals being trucked across the country, no bottle to throw away.  Another example is Ecologic Solutions, a company based in NYC that provides turnkey green cleaning solutions for restaurants.  Another example of a green cleaner is Sanolite’s Bio Floor Cleaner.  These cleaning options are being used in real Certified Green Restaurants®, and in addition to them having a much better environmental impact, they also work.  See example below of the Chemical and Pollution Reduction Steps of Souplantion and Sweet Tomato’s One Hundred and Twenty 2 Star Certified Green Restaurants®

Souplantions’s Chemical and Pollution Reduction Steps
Green Cleaning Products
Green Hand Soap
Building Located ¼ Mile from Bus Line
Warewashing Products-Reduced Packaging
Low Mercury Linear Fluorescent Bulbs
Covered Outdoor Lights (Minimize Light Pollution)
No HCFC-based refrigerants

Just as we have Certified Green Restaurants® across the country that are recycling everything and composting everything, making them Near-Zero Waste™ restaurants, it is also possible to eliminate the need for dangerous and toxic chemicals from cleaners, chafing fuel, linen cleaning, dish soap, etc.

It’s being done successfully in many restaurants across the U.S.  It can become commonplace in every restaurant.

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Outdoor Catering Tools – KD Folding Chafing Dish

Posted on March 31, 2012 by jsellers
Outdoor Catering Tools – KD Folding Chafing Dish

The KD Heater is a uniquely designed portable chafing dish that folds flat to just 1.75 inches thick. This makes transportation and storage easier than ever.

If you’re looking for outdoor catering tools, a folding chafing dish is probably on your list. After all, with summer quickly approaching, you will surely be asked to cater outdoor events in the coming months. Burgers, hotdogs, pasta, corn on the cob, and other dishes need to be kept warm to remain safe to eat throughout the event. That’s when the KD Heater hot box becomes one of your most valuable catering tools.

The KD Heater is a uniquely designed portable chafing dish that folds flat to just 1.75” thick. This makes transportation and storage easier than ever. With a windproof design, the KD Heater retains more heat than hot boxes designed only for indoor use. This makes it easier to keep food at the minimum safe temperature of 135 degrees, no matter what the weather is doing.

There are three finishes available for the KD Heater so you present the precise look you’re after. Choose from copper vein, silver vein, or swirl. Be sure to purchase a matching dome cover for your folding chafing dish as well. To enhance the look of the finish you choose, plan to surround the hot box with decorative pieces that compliment the theme of the event.

While looks are very important, the most vital aspect of catering an event is using catering tools correctly so food remains safe to consume. To do this, begin by filling the bottom of the folding chafing dish with hot water. Open a chafing fuel container with the proper tool and position it in the designated fuel space beneath the folding chafing dish. Now, carefully light the fuel with a lighter. Give the fuel 30 minutes to heat the water until it begins to steam. Then, fill the top chafing dish with hot food. Remember, your folding chafing dish is designed to keep food hot, not warm it from a chilled state.

Your outdoor event is sure to be a success if you have the KD Heater available to you. Plan to use this portable chafing dish to keep your food warm during your next outdoor catering event.

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