Labor Day seems like an appropriate time for the foodservice industry to reconsider a phrase we use constantly: labor-saving.

For manufacturers, labor-saving often gets translated into a fairly simple equation. A product eliminates a prep step, reduces cooking time or saves 30 seconds of employee time. Multiply that across hundreds of servings and suddenly there is a compelling labor-savings story.

Those savings matter. But they don’t tell the whole story.

Labor Is More Than Minutes

Anyone who has spent time talking with restaurant operators knows that labor isn’t simply measured in minutes. Employees have to receive products, find room for them, store them properly, learn how to prepare them, clean up after them and produce the same result during a quiet Tuesday afternoon and a slammed Friday night.

A product can save two minutes of prep and still create operational headaches somewhere else.

That’s why we think the definition of labor-saving needs to expand. The better question may not be, “How many minutes does this product save?” It may be, “How much easier does this product make the operator’s day?”

Reducing Complexity Is Labor-Saving, Too

That changes the conversation.

A product that arrives in a format employees immediately understand can be labor-saving. So can packaging that is easier to open, portion and store. A product that works across multiple menu applications can reduce complexity. Something that requires little training and produces a consistent result regardless of who is working the station can be enormously valuable.

And sometimes the best labor-saving innovation is simply a product employees don’t have to think very much about.

That’s increasingly important because today’s foodservice workforce is being asked to manage a lot. Operators are balancing turnover, training, changing menus, digital orders, delivery, food safety requirements and customers who expect speed and consistency regardless of what is happening behind the counter.

Adding one more “innovative” product that requires a new procedure, additional equipment or extensive training may not feel much like innovation to the person responsible for executing it.

The Test Kitchen Isn’t the Operation

This is also where manufacturers can benefit from getting closer to the people actually doing the work.

A product can perform beautifully in a test kitchen and still struggle in a real operation. The difference is often not the food itself. It’s everything surrounding it.

Does it fit existing equipment? Is there room to store it? Can a new employee execute it correctly after minimal training? Does it perform consistently during a rush? Does it simplify the operation—or simply move the work somewhere else?

Those questions can matter as much as the minutes saved during preparation.

A Labor Day Question for Foodservice

Labor Day is intended to recognize the contributions of American workers. For those of us in foodservice, perhaps there’s a useful business lesson in that as well.

If we really value the people who keep restaurants, schools, hospitals, convenience stores and other foodservice operations running every day, we should design products and processes around their reality.

So maybe the industry’s definition of labor-saving needs to become a little less about the stopwatch—and a lot more about making someone’s shift easier.

 

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