Food Price Rise Affects Restaurant Menus

Restaurants have slapped a surcharge on the cost of steaks and dropped popular dishes from their menus as they pass on soaring food costs to their customers.

Owners say the rising prices of staples such as rice, beef and chicken are forcing them to cut the size of portions, use more vegetables and re-write recipes to drop expensive ingredients.

Fish not fowl: Le Raj restaurant owner Enam Ali has introduced pangush fish as a cheaper alternative to chicken

A fillet steak surcharge of several pounds has been added to some menus. Other casualties include mozzarella cheese and chicken tikka biryani, while smoked mackerel is being offered as a cheaper alternative to salmon.

Skimping on side orders is another survival strategy being adopted, with extras such as coleslaw disappearing from plates.

Despite these measures, market analysts said they expected the rate of restaurants going out of business to increase with rising costs - accounted for largely by ingredients - already wiping out the average caterer's profit margin.

Miles Quest, of the British Hospitality Association, which includes the Restaurant Association, said: "High food prices are certainly affecting the industry. I think most caterers are trying to change the menus to reflect this. But where you are serving steak, the only option is to have a smaller portion."

Rising grain prices affect the price of bread and pasta, but also have an impact on meat and dairy prices, with feed wheat prices up more than 80 per cent since April last year.

Vince Margiotta, director of Il Forno Italian restaurant in Liverpool and Sapporo Teppanyaki in Liverpool and Manchester, said they had added a £2.50 extra charge on their menus for customers ordering fillet steak.

"We've had a significant increase on fillet and I've had to pass that on [to customers]," Mr Margiotta said. "I've altered the pricing on the menu with £2.50 on top of the £17.75 list price in an addendum. We have added other cuts of meat to our weekly specials menu."

Rice has seen the most dramatic price rises, with several major rice-growing countries in south-east Asia in effect banning exports to keep prices low for the home market. Basmati rice is the only type coming out of India and now costs British wholesalers about £1,000 a ton, up 100 per cent since April last year. Long-grain rice from Thailand has risen 60 per cent in the last 2½ months.

Enam Ali, chairman of the Guild of Bangladeshi Restaurateurs, said in 30 years in the business he had never known anything like the recent rises in food prices.

Mr Ali, who owns the award-winning Le Raj restaurant in Epsom Downs, Surrey, said in just six weeks the price he paid for 44lb of rice had doubled from £18 to £36, while the cost of 22lb of chicken fillets had risen from £25 to £32. The cost of a range of other ingredients, including ghee and spices, had also gone up dramatically.

As a result, Le Raj's chicken tikka biryani dish will be dropped altogether - charging a market rate would see it rise from £12.50 to about £18.

Chicken tikka massala is staying on the menu, but will rise from £8.50 to £9.50

Tengamita, another chicken dish, is to increase in price from £8.50 to £11.95 while special rice is to rise from the loss-making price of £3.65 to £4.50 or £4.65.

"The rice is a really big problem because 99 per cent of our customers eat rice," Mr Ali said. "I am going to start changing some dishes because I'm losing money. I thought the market would get back to normal, it might be temporary - that's why I haven't increased prices - but now I have to, it's going up and up. It's not stopping.

He is bringing in pangush, a popular Bangladeshi fish dish, and a chicken kebab mixed half-and-half with vegetables as more affordable options. But some businesses, instead of changing the menu, are choosing to serve less.

A catering industry insider said: "We've heard that people are taking away the little embellishments - fish and chips might now be missing the coleslaw. People are taking some of the bigger cuts of meat off the menu. Where before you might be offered a 4oz and 8oz steak, now you can only have the 4oz."

Peter Backman, managing director of the catering industry analyst Horizons, said businesses were being forced into making changes at a time of very stiff competition.

"People are reformulating their menus. One of the solutions is replacing more expensive things with cheaper things," he said.

Chantelle Ludski, who is the founder and chief sandwich maker of the London-based company Fresh! Naturally Organic, has come up with several new sandwich recipes to stave off the worst effects of the rising cost of supplies.

She has decided to replace her roast beef, mozzarella, pesto, tomato and rocket sandwich with a similar one, but using British smoked cheddar and a home-made, sun-dried tomato pesto to keep the cost down to £2.65.

"It's just tweaking the ingredients. You might say we would do that anyway, but we have also been doing it with an eye to the cost of ingredients," Miss Ludski said. However, some price rises have been inevitable, with an egg sandwich up from £1.90 to £2.05.

But Ian Brown, head chef of Glasgow's Ubiquitous Chip restaurant, said it was not necessarily a bad thing if higher costs meant restaurateurs were looking at cheaper cuts of meat. "It takes more skill to use the cheaper cuts," he said.

Let's see...Local animal shelter is over crowded and the price of meat is going up...Is there a solution to both problems?
I've noticed a distinct fall off in the newspaper ads offering free dogs and cats so I wonder where all that “barbecue” meat at the farmer's market came from?
Just a little creative thinking here folks, your pets are safe...as long as you keep them in the house and quiet.

I’m planting vegetables and vine fruits. I find it very relaxing. My grandkids love it too. Start small and add as you like. I don’t know how to can (yet) so I plan to do a lot of freezing.

You can actually achieve a better product by freezing corn, green beans, and most other veggies. Same for soups and stews.

I'm a big "canner"...but I don't bother with things that need the pressure cooker. You can safely can: jellies and jams; pickles; salsa; tomato juice; diced tomatoes (even those that are flavored with spices)...anything that is higher in acid using a boiling water canning method.

The USDA has a terrific site with recipes and instructions.

They now recommend that spaghetti sauce be pressure-canned; so I freeze it. Here's the website (BTW, I think it also gives instruction for freezing homegrown or fresh-purchased produce):

http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/publications/publications_usda.html

We didn't have any strays in my old neighborhood. The running joke was that the most popular cookbook in the area was "101 Ways to Wok a Dog". One of my co-workers moved into the area with his pet dog. A neighbor's head popped up over the adjacent fence. He remarked on how nice the dog was, then inquired about the asking price. The neighbor was making a bona fide offer to purchase ingredients for dinner.

My wife and I were walking through the garden section of Lowe's this afternoon. We found two nice cherry trees and an Italian plum tree. Both will be planted tomorrow. They are completely suitable for our location and are good fruit bearing trees. They are also genetic dwarfs, so they won't overwhelm the yard. My wife returned later with more bare root blackberries to add to our existing berry patch. The window sill in the kitchen has 5 big habanero pepper plants. They yielded about 20 fine quality peppers last season.

In mid-February, I helped my son to relocate from San Dieog to Pocatello. The extra costs of assisting him have necessitated a change in our dining habits. He was over this afternoon and spent about 5 hours making a very high quality Vietnamese phở bò (rice noodle soup with rare steak). He also cooked some outstanding carne asada a couple weeks ago. I'm going to have to jump into the fray with some Thai green curry with chicken. For the less timid, I make the chicken curry with habaneros. We have lots of fun creating good food in the kitchen. Most of it is exotic stuff we can't order at any restaurant.

Pocatello warmed up to around 62 degrees today. Everybody was outside doing gardening. I turned the water back on for the sprinkler systems and applied a soil activator/feeder over the entire 1/3 acre at my residence. I have sprinkler heads to fix as well. It's that time of year again.

One of my favs that I did tonight was Ribs. Anyone can do it.

The ribs at Texas Roadhouse, Ruby Tuesday and Chili's are pretty decent, but I almost always get sick from the gluten in the barbecue sauce. It's nearly as easy to do it at home on the grill and prevents the uncontrolled introduction of gluten tainted barbecue sauce.

Myrddin wrote: "Pocatello warmed up to around 62 degrees today. Everybody was outside doing gardening. I turned the water back on for the sprinkler systems and applied a soil activator/feeder over the entire 1/3 acre at my residence. I have sprinkler heads to fix as well. It's that time of year again."

"62 degrees" Oh lucky you, lol. It was in the 90s here today, and I just heard that there was another fire down here, near Magic Mountain. Temps around 97 is predicted for tomorrow. "Nice and warm" reassures our weatherman. Ick.

I had snow on my lawn just two days ago. It's down to 41 degrees right now. Expecting around 36 at night and 62 during the day for the next few days. Spring and Fall are just delightful in Pocatello. June/July/August will be daytime temps from 86 to 103 with humidity between 5% and 20%. No sweat...literally. Night time drops to 60 to 80. I ditch my sheets and blanks and sleep with the window open all summer. You do need to pay attention to proper hydration with the low humidity and high elevation. It's real easy to get dehydrated.

Fire in the middle of the state of Idaho is a part of the summer as well. When the smoke gets bad, I shut the windows and turn on the air conditioning. HEPA filters help a great deal. A few million acres burned last year. Jeff Head quipped about the "Smoky Mountains". It was forest fires in Idaho. The brilliant red sunsets are accentuated by the smoke.

I was listening to the radio the other day (I never caught the station or the program), and the speaker said that the growing middle class in India and China have as much to go with rising food prices as the ethanol issue or a growing population.

I wish I could name the speaker, but I was preoccupied with driving in the snow.

Anyway, it sounded reasonable at the time, as the man gave statistics that cited the rising average salaries in both places. He equated rising salaries with the residents of those countries consuming more of everything (food, fuel, consumer goods).

Is anyone else familiar with this theory? The speaker said that things would not get a lot better until 2nd- and 3rd-world agriculture techniques caught up to the 1st world.

I haven't been there in forever (many years) but the Outback Steakhouse is supposed to be very good for Celiacs. They are supposed to train their wait staff and chefs to be aware of gluten issues.

I was diagnosed a few months ago and haven't been out to eat more than a few times since then, but it is on my list of places to go when I am feeling more adventurous.

Outback has a Gluten-free menu, which is on their website somewhere.

On a serious note, as meat prices go up I expect to see more rustling. Pretty easy to grab one animal at a time. It’s all profit for the thief and they would have little trouble selling it.
Of course prison chow might not include much steak if the rustler is caught.

Tomorrow I’m going to get a box of frozen and keep at the house.

Read the back of the bag before you buy it.

I look at EVERYTHING to see where it comes from before I buy it. But for some reason I saw a huge bag of frozen shrimp at a great price and just latched on to it.

Got home and as I was putting the food away it occurred to me to see where it came from.

Pakistan. I bought some freaking Pakistani shrimp!

I had to go out tonight and harvest a couple dozen asparagus spears. Supposed to be mid 20’s tonight and tomorrow night. Snowed a while Saturday afternoon.

I spent most of last evening potting up tomato and pepper seedlings. I'll have to carry them another month before I can set them out and offer my surplus for sale.

"Got home and as I was putting the food away it occurred to me to see where it came from. Pakistan. I bought some freaking Pakistani shrimp!"

My god, what a mess, huh? Next sea bass from Nepal?

Catfish Labeling Bill Becomes Law

Wednesday Apr 9

A new Mississippi law will require restaurants to disclose whether the catfish they serve is imported or raised in the United States. via WTOK-TV Meridian

We could grow food fuel on land that has not been used for food before.

Are you serious? How much unused land do you think there is? Maybe if we cleared all remaining forests and national parks. Wonder what the warmies would think of that.

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