Earlier this month, the University of Dundee announced that it is cutting 632 jobs in a bid to address its £35m deficit. The University stated that a myriad of factors have contributed to its deteriorating financial position, including inflationary pressures, higher National Insurance contributions, and lower student recruitment, both nationally and internationally.
Several other universities are also facing financial strain. The University of Edinburgh is dealing with a projected £140m deficit, Cardiff University has announced plans to cut 400 full-time jobs, and Durham University is preparing to cut 200 positions.
Significant changes are needed to prevent the situation from worsening. One key area universities can review is their retail and catering operations. In almost every case, there are opportunities to enhance efficiency and reduce costs. We have worked with universities for years, helping them streamline operations and achieve substantial savings – savings that can make a fundamental difference to their financial future.
Mark Kassapian, Managing Director at Litmus Retail, shares his top five tips:
1. Operating efficiently can mean a few things – it can be ensuring that you have the right product ready to go at the right time so your sales are maximised, smart rostering so you don’t have surplus staff on, you have your best staff on duty at peak hours to ensure a quick service, advertising is aligned to the seasons and day parts, your directional signage is accurate, tables are turned around quickly and so on. This allows you to drive sales when students are there and want to spend.
2. Tech innovations – such as Smart Fridges and Vending solutions – offer 24/7 food and drink, but without additional labour costs. Students can access these at any time of the day and night, particularly useful around exam season when sunrise or twilight studying goes on or for late night socialising. Innovation in this space has seen a wide variety of dishes such as pizza, noodles and ramen as well as porridge being able to be ordered, cooked and delivered within minutes – all from the machine. Be careful though and check there is footfall and demand for tech solutions, and it’s not just for novelty value. Every outlet within the catering mix needs to work hard, and savings on labour costs can be quickly eroded if the tech doesn’t deliver the revenue required to justify the investment and running costs.
3. Make sure you nail the layout of any convenience retail services. Promotions or offers should always be around the entrance to attract attention and help to draw students in. Displays should be agile and changed during the day so they look full and have the right things in for the right day parts; fridges can be used for snacks and sandwiches until mid-afternoon then ready meals can be put in for the evening. If in doubt, it’s worth going to the nearest Tesco or Sainsbury’s and looking at their product range and grouping. They spend a significant amount of resource looking at exactly these things in a hugely scientific way that a single entity cannot possibly repeat.
4. Internal hospitality can seem like an easy saving by just putting a stop to it but beware! If you lose control of the spend you lose control of food hygiene, allergen and nutrition info, supplier accreditation, standardisation, and sight of how much is being spent. If that revenue is kept internal to the university, the margin stays within your catering department rather than going external. Also don’t forget that the labour cost supports your catering team and the department is set up to handle the ordering, charging, delivery and collection processes that saves huge time for your support teams. Finally, your sustainability aspirations can continue to be met by the catering teams rather than external parties who do not and will not, perform to the same standards.
5. Talk to colleagues, share best practice, walk the high street and see what is happening – or just call us!
If you’d like help reviewing your university catering services, then contact us here
The Litmus tea