According to recent data compiled by the National Frozen & Refrigerated Foods Association, Americans eat an average of 48 pints of ice cream a year. 98% of Americans purchase ice cream each year, and 87% have ice cream in their freezer at any given time.
Americans love ice cream and frozen desserts, and you can’t dispute the data. What does that mean for a restaurant owner? It means you need to have ice cream or frozen custard on your dessert menu.
You could buy a Frozen Custard Machine. Are you unsure about the benefits of buying one for your business? Read on to learn the top eight benefits of a frozen custard machine.
1. Boost Sales using a Frozen Custard Machine
Are you having trouble selling desserts? That’s a problem if you’re running a fast-casual restaurant. You don’t make much money on your appetizers and entrees.
A restaurant makes the most money from two menu items: alcohol and dessert. Many fast-casual restaurants mark up their desserts to offset the labor and product costs of their dinner menu. If your restaurant isn’t selling dessert, your restaurant loses money.
Selling frozen custard at your restaurant will improve your dessert sales. Improved dessert sales mean more profit.
2. Cut Labor Costs
Talent costs money in a restaurant kitchen. If you’re making all of your cakes, pies, and ice cream in-house, you’re paying a lot of money in labor to a pastry chef.
That’s an acceptable cost if you run a fine dining restaurant. Fine dining dessert menus should reflect the artistry of the appetizers, salads, and entrees. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t look for ways to cut costs.
Whether your restaurant concept embraces the trappings of a Michelin-rated contemporary American fine dining or family casual, a frozen custard machine can help you keep your labor costs in control.
If you use a pastry chef, a custard machine will cut their hours. If you don’t employ a pastry chef, a frozen custard machine will improve your restaurant’s dessert options.
3. Control Product Costs by Owning a Frozen Custard Machine
Restaurant owners function at the whim of the marketplace. When the cost of products rises, profit margins get slim. In many cases, those marketplace shifts result in higher menu prices.
While rising product costs impact every restaurant, skyrocketing menu prices can put a restaurant out of business. One way to avoid this is by implementing measures meant to control your product cost. You save more money when you purchase less from a third-party vendor.
Take a look at what’s happening in the U.S. economy right now. Prices of goods and services, including ice cream, continue to rise. By owning a frozen custard or soft-serve ice cream machine, you don’t rely on vendors or the supply chain to produce great-tasting desserts.
By keeping production in your kitchen, you will also keep your menu prices lower than your competition.
4. Give the People What They Want
Who doesn’t like ice cream? According to the above statistics from the National Frozen & Refrigerated Foods Association, less than 2% of the American public. Americans love ice cream for dessert, and you have to have it.
You can bake cakes and pies. You can serve delicious panna cotta and cookies. If you don’t have what the public wants, you risk losing business.
5. Flexibility
When COVID-19 shut down dine-in restaurants and bars last year, many businesses transitioned to keep their doors open. Cocktail bars turned into wine and liquor stores, and small restaurants turned into deli markets.
As we get back to normal, it’s tempting to forget the lessons COVID-19 taught restaurant owners. While you may now focus on staffing and filling the tables in your dining room, it helps to have a backup plan.
Though the restaurant industry may never suffer an industry cataclysm like an infectious disease pandemic, some other industry-disrupting event could occur. Owning a frozen custard machine gives your business the ability to withstand any storm.
6. Frozen Custard Machine – Fun Flavors
Does vanilla have you down? Are you tired of the same-old chocolate?
With a frozen custard machine, you open up your dessert options and flavor varieties.
If there’s a flavor you love but can’t find, give it a try! You also have seasonal flavor options. Think pumpkin in the fall, anise at Christmas, and peach in the summer.
These unique flavors can boost sales and give your restaurant its calling card.
7. Diet-Friendly
Vegetarians and vegans represent an undervalued market, and one you could potentially tap with your frozen custard machine.
Unfortunately, far too many restaurants ignore these people. Or they offer slapdash vegetarian or vegan menu items. By providing these folks with delicious menu options, you show that your restaurant respects vegans and vegetarians.
If you show these folks respect, you are far more likely to win a fiercely loyal customer base.
8. Keeps Staff Happy
Employee benefits are a hot topic in the restaurant industry. How the industry treats its workers as we put COVID-19 in the rearview mirror will determine the future of the American labor market.
Hospitality workers now demand sane hours, a living wage, and health insurance. Free frozen custard isn’t a substitute for any of those things, but it can help keep morale high during a busy shift. Give your staff a sweet treat to show them how much you appreciate all of their hard work.
A Frozen Custard Machine Benefits Your Business
Do you want to set your restaurant apart from the competition? Are you trying to boost the dessert sales vital to the financial health of your business?
One of the best ways to do both is to invest in a Frozen Custard Machine. A dessert machine helps you control labor and product costs and gives your menu a unique twist.
Are you ready to serve the best sweets? Contact us today for all of your frozen dessert needs.
