Background
Metz is a family-owned and family-driven contract management company established in 1994 and currently serving different market segments including healthcare, corporate dining, higher education and independent and public school dining. The company’s “Guest-First” philosophy informs work that aims to exceed the needs and expectations of each customer they serve.
“The family culture of the organisation together with the delivery of restaurant-inspired hospitality to all their guests is what makes Metz so unique”.
Rated as one of the top 20 food service management companies and ranked #12 on Food Management Magazine’s list of the Top 50 Management Companies in the United States, the already established Metz continues to expand its footprint and bring innovation to the food service management industry.
Brian Bachman, Metz’ Vice President of Purchasing is a Registered Dietitian by trade and has held a plethora of food service industry roles over the years, initially serving as a Food service Director for the healthcare sector. Prior to joining Metz Culinary Management (MCM), Bachman served as Senior Director of Food service Operational Strategy for Premier Inc, where he was responsible for group purchasing organisation, sourcing and operations consulting. In his current role, he oversees the purchasing department and is responsible for ensuring company-wide compliance.
The need for a solution
Metz is continuously embracing innovations to enable restaurants and food service businesses to uphold their standards for ethical responsibility, environmental stewardship and healthy lifestyles. They constantly adapt operations, menus, environments and marketing strategies to meet the needs of their guests and organisation.
Moreover, they are aware of the importance of intelligently designing food service operations to improve staff productivity, communication and job satisfaction.
With this in mind, and with the objectives of providing the highest food service and quality experience and streamlining their processes, MCM had long been looking for a user-friendly recipe and menu management technology solution, ideally one centralised platform that facilitated management of all business types and segments.
“We were using an obsolete and old system that lacked user-friendly modules, allergen identifiers, corporate control and guest interaction capabilities. We had explored different solutions in the market but none of them met our needs.”
Right from Brian’s introduction to Nutritics, he highlighted a couple of features that, to him, made the software stand out from all competitors, namely; the ease of use of the system, its guest interaction and interface capabilities, and the possibility of managing costs, allergens, nutritional information and recipes in real-time and on one centralised platform.
Results
Metz uses Nutritics primarily as their corporate recipe database, for calculating costs per portion, scaling recipes and improving guests’ experience. Nutritics also plays a key role in efficiently managing nutrition, allergen and menu data across numerous Metz’ sites.
Furthermore, Brian notes that recipe standardisation processes have increased Metz’ chef’s productivity levels: “Our chefs can just pull recipes from Nutritics instead of having to create them themselves”. In addition, they can determine which recipes will or will not work within the allocated budget thanks to the accurate calculator of recipe costs. This feature assists in maximising profitability and reducing waste.
Giving their guests a superior dining experience is critical to delivering the “guest first” promise and, with the incorporation of Nutritics’ Digital Menu, their guests can interact and browse the menu and make better-informed meal choices efficiently without staff involvement: “Guests and clients are able to see pictures of the menu items and they know straight away what is in the menu item and set their diet and allergen preferences.”
Metz has created a position within the organisation that oversees compliance, which is often seen as a burden for many food businesses. Brian outlines how Nutritics has supported the company in this matter: “End-users cannot modify recipes or ingredients, they only have access to scale recipes which helps us with compliance.”
Looking ahead
As a family-owned business, they have grown into a nationally renowned dining management company and are counting on Nutritics to future-proof their business as they grow. “Having the knowledge at your fingertips is what we wanted to accomplish by utilising Nutritics, and this program allowed us to do so.“
Over the next year, Brian and his team have some ambitious objectives planned. They aim to continue training their accounts on the program, pilot both the online ordering and patient services modules. “Nutritics is always willing to develop their program to make it better for MCM and we are really grateful for our partnership. This will eventually help current and future clients in the long run.”
Further to the increased safety and hygiene benefits, digital menus offer a sustainable way of displaying nutrition and allergen information in a busy ever-changing food environment. Nutritics digital menus are powered by Nutritics professional food analysis software to enable the display of both interactive and accurate food information.
Nutritics can be customised to meet your needs. Easy to use, cloud-based, and with the most comprehensive set of food reference databases available, Nutritics is developed by technologists and regulatory experts, specifically for use within the food service industry. Click through to try Nutritics for free for 7 days, or to speak to one of our expert advisors.