In this case study, we highlight the story of one restaurant owner who decided that outsourcing their custom spice blend was right for them. To protect the privacy of our customer and their proprietary information, we are concealing their identity from this case study.
At Pacific Spice, our custom blending capabilities solve customer challenges every day.
With the help of our state-of-the-art facility and on-staff flavor experts, we help companies streamline their spice blending process. Together we create consistent blends that help our clients deliver high-quality flavor while saving money, time, and storage space.
We had the privilege of sitting down with one of our clients and interviewing them about their experience outsourcing their custom blend needs to Pacific Spice. We’ve written a synopsis of our discussion below and highlighted some key takeaways.
Summary
A restaurant owner faced many challenges when creating their signature spice blend from scratch at each of their many restaurant locations. After outsourcing their custom blend to Pacific Spice, they secured spice blend consistency, cost effectiveness, and recipe confidentiality.
Background
Our featured client is the owner of a growing chain of restaurants. This restaurant owner was going through the very exciting (albeit challenging) experience of expanding their restaurant by adding multiple restaurant locations with the same name and menu.
Challenge
The restaurant in question is known for their signature dish which features a proprietary seasoning blend. It was very important to the restaurant owner that this dish present a consistent flavor across all locations as they expanded.
Traditionally, this spice blend was created from scratch. However, as the restaurant grew into new locations, this manual method presented a few challenges:
- Recipe Inconsistency: With more staff dispersed across locations, it became difficult to strike recipe consistency with each blend. They started to notice differences in flavor from location to location.
- Privacy Issues: Due to the exponential increase in staff, the restaurant experienced more staff transience, and the recipe of the blend became known to staff who did not stay long-term with the restaurant. This posed a high risk of recipe duplication.
- Higher Cost: Because spices needed to be purchased individually, the cost of creating each blend from scratch at each location became onerous to the overall profitability. The restaurants were often left with excess quantities of the lesser-used ingredients that they had no use for. The blending process was also inefficient and time consuming, which led to higher labor costs.
Solution
When this client came to us, they explained their specific challenges. We suggested outsourcing their blend to Pacific Spice, and assured the restaurant owner that we could help them streamline their process to cut down on expense of duplication, protect the secret recipe, and ensure flavor consistency across all locations.
Results
Once the restaurant switched to outsourcing their spice blend to Pacific Spice, they saw immediate benefits:
- Recipe Consistency: The consistency of the dish was maintained across locations.
- Greater Confidentiality: Because the recipe was blended in-house at Pacific Spice, it was under our strict control and oversight, and protected by our non-disclosure agreement. There was no longer any need for the recipe to be disclosed to their employees in each location, and the sanctity of the recipe was preserved. there was no longer any need for the recipe to be disclosed to their employees in each location, and the sanctity of the recipe was preserved.
- Scaleable Reproduction: With the help of our state-of-the-art equipment, we are able to reproduce this custom blend at any scale. This future-proofs our client’s proprietary recipe for future expansion.
- Lower Cost: Because there was no longer a need to purchase spices individually, the overall cost of ingredients decreased. And since employees at each location no longer had to blend the spices by hand, labor cost was also reduced.
Outsourcing a Spice Blend at PSC
At PSC, we work tirelessly to un-complicate the spice blending process and give you more time to concentrate on building your business. Whether you already have a recipe, or would like help in creating one, we ensure the highest level of care and confidentiality.
From ideation to final product, we will help you every step of the way.
For more information on this topic, read our previous post, 4 Reasons to Outsource Your Spice Blend. And if you’d like to know if outsourcing is right for you, call your sales person today.