Food Service Management Software

Catering market expected to be worth $616.24 billion by 2023*

High market maturity in Western Europe and USA

Various new trends such as zero-waste, multiple-use bags, boom in-home delivery

Food Service Management and Catering Sector

The restaurant and food service industry is fiercely competitive. 60% of restaurants don’t make it past their first year and 80 percent go out of business within five years (FSR). The result is that food service operators have to take market share from their competitors in order to grow. To accomplish this, restaurants and institutions continue to devise all sorts of innovations and ways to differentiate their business from their competitors through effective food service management.

Food service is a large sector, composed of many commercial and non-commercial stakeholders. The commercial segment makes up almost 80% of the restaurant and food service industry and includes businesses such as full-service restaurants, catering, stadiums, airlines, and cruise ships. The non-commercial segment prepares and serves food in support of some other establishment’s main purpose. Categories in this segment include catering in schools and universities, military, health care, business and industry, and clubs

Why have a PLM system for Food Service industry?

Food service management software

Food service management is among the most challenging sectors in Food and Beverage as a whole. Customer retention, shifting demographics and changing economies, high workforce turnover, large-scale trends (such as local food, food trucks and small plates), passing fads, and wildly variable business costs are just some of the challenges food service managers face every day.

Food service professionals have to be aware of new trends and boost their innovation processes. Developing a product portfolio by riding the wave of the latest consumer trends can enable companies to achieve improved margins and healthy growth. Quick and accurate introduction of innovative products is a competitive advantage for companies able to effectively launch new ranges, menus, and concept developments; all these are core aspects of efficient food service management.

Food sourcing, quality, preservation, and waste are also key challenges to consider when focusing on food service management.

Food service is facing tough regulatory compliance requirements too. Local and global regulations are stricter than ever, and the time and resources to comply with new regulations are not readily available.

To secure a competitive advantage in the marketplace, more and more companies are implementing food service software to assist them in their products/menus lifecycle management processes. Going beyond simple food service management tools, a PLM (Product Lifecycle Management solution) for food service management is a powerful software to help companies meet their day-to-day challenges. Lascom from Aptean offers a food service software package to businesses to assist them in their food service management.

A PLM for Catering

Lascom from Aptean has developed PLM software designed for food service and catering professionals. To respond to consumer needs and wants, food manufacturers are constantly developing innovative concepts, recipes, and dishes.

With Aptean PLM Lascom Edition, you can more easily organize each stage of dish and menu development – from the marketing briefs to actual launch – and facilitate collaboration between all departments and subcontractors. Aptean PLM Lascom Edition will help you:

Accelerate innovation and time-to-market: manage the development of new recipes, menus, or dishes, take control over your product portfolio with centralized information and documents, calculate finished product costs based on suppliers’ costs
Increase productivity: manage and optimize product and menu formulation, automate the calculation of nutritional facts and list of ingredients, allergens, and health claims, edit, optimize collaboration with suppliers
Improve customer retention: meet regulatory requirements and generate labels compliant with European Regulation 1169/2011, optimize product traceability to respond quickly to safety warnings.

A solution for each business unit

Aptean PLM Lascom Edition is a solution designed for each and every department in your company involved in product development. First, using the Business module, take full advantage of the portfolio management and marketing brief assistant features, and clearly define your NPD process and packaging development process. R&D teams can make use of a formulation tool including the USDA and CIQUAL libraries. Procurement departments can streamline their work with suppliers using our supplier portal, RFP/RFQ portal and specification portal. The Compliance department will appreciate the labeling tool (USDA and European Regulation 1169/2011 compliant) and certification management components. Finally, Quality can use the system to manage audit panels, samples, non-conformity and customer complaints.

Benefits of our PLM software for Food Service Management

Productivity gains: no more waiting for information to be retrieved, standardize your information, reduce internal and external exchange cycles by 70%, and benefit from automatic documentation generation (product sheets, lists of ingredients, etc.)

Quality gains: manage the impacts of changes, trace all discussions and dialogs, simplify management of health warnings on menus and products, ensure regulatory compliance, and reduce the time spent on quality checks by 30%

Strategic gains: have an overview of development processes, control costs, monitor compliance with deadlines and tasks, prioritize projects and manage the portfolio of existing products, build a strategic business vision, and reduce time-to-market by 30%