How many people fly on a daily basis?

How many people do you need in a commercial kitchen to cook for 50 people on a daily basis, for 3 meals a day?

• Do you need twice as many to cook for 100 people? I hope not...

• Answer:

  When I was a student I used to work as a kitchen manager at a student housing cooperative in the States. We typically had close to a 100 residents each semester and served three meals a day. Here's a brief rundown on our kitchen operations, which may provide a rough idea as to the minimal amount of manhours you are looking at. Breakfast Prep and Cook (6:30 - 7:30 am) 1 cook. Bacon, scrambled eggs, and muffins (serving size 50). Morning Clean-Up (8:00 - 9:00 am) A crew of 3. One handles the chemical dishwasher, one handles the 3-sink-compartment a.k.a. pot scrub, and the third wipes down tables and sweeps. Lunch Prep and Cook (9:00 - 11:00 am) 1 head cook and 2 helpers. Light and easy meals e.g. casserole, grilled cheese and tomato soup (serving size 70 and upwards). Lunch Clean-Up (1:00 - 2:00 pm) A crew of 4. Like morning clean-up, but more thorough, more pot scrub and the occasional mopping. Dinner Prep (2:00 - 4:00 pm) 1 head cook and 2 helpers All the prep-intensive stuff e.g. chopping vegetables, marinating chicken, making batter for dessert (serving size 90 and upwards). Dinner Cook (4:00 - 6:00 pm) 1 head cook and 2 helpers The actual cooking process, including spillover tasks from dinner prep. Dinner Clean-Up (6:30 - 8:00 pm) A crew of 5. Like lunch clean-up, but with obscene amounts of pot scrub. It's not uncommon to finish the shift smelling of Pine-Sol, bleach, and grease. Hopefully in that order. Assumptions behind the daily schedule and resource manhours No two shifts above are worked by the same people. Residents only have to put in 4 hours of labor/week. Hence it is unlikely for residents to work two or more shifts in the same day (with the exception of dinner head cooks). Whereas your workers are probably full-time. We follow fixed menus with minimal impromptu changes. No pre-prep work is done. The cooking hours are all-inclusive. Serving size differs because it's a college environment. Many students either sleep-in, eat cereal, or skip breakfast altogether. During lunch, some students prefer staying on campus. In a restaurant business, you may not have the luxury of altering serving sizes, even if it is based on historical observations. We're not professionals. Being college students, we are less efficient than professionals working in the food and beverage industry. Hence, the resource manhours here are overestimates if you are looking for an industry benchmark. As to your question of whether you need twice as many people to prepare double the amount of food, generally not. This is mainly because you have access to commercial kitchen tools and appliances. For example, I want to slice 50 carrots instead of the usual 25 carrots. If I use a food processor, I am only adding a minute or two to the overall task time, despite having doubled the amount of food. Obviously this is a simplified example, as some kitchens may want the carrots sliced a certain way which can only be done by hand.  But generally, no, you do not need to double the amount of manpower to create double the amount of food.