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Cover story


“General critical comments for the menu are that it is seasonally all over the place, very vague ingredient-wise and extremely repetitive” George Blogg


Business plan Our next step is more challenging. Can AI help create a business plan to take to stakeholders? With a name and an (admittedly rather broad) concept we asked ChatGPT to draw up our pro- posal. The result was a 550-word document with headings including business description, market analysis, sustainable practises, market- ing and branding, operational plan, financial plan, risk analysis and future expansion. While it did attempt to provide context


around some of these headings, the proposal given is more of a template to build on, with prompts such as “develop detailed finan- cial projections for the first three years” and “develop contingency plans and strategies to mitigate risks”. Restaurateur April Jackson, who is behind


Wood and Water as well as SideChick bar in London, commented: “I do love ChatGPT for my Instagram captions but judging from this result, I think I would leave it at that for now. “While I never recommend judging a busi-


ness’s success on the strength of its plan, as it takes so much more than a road map to earn success in this industry, the plan that has been generated seems almost useless. “Of course, if you have no idea where to


start, the repetitive ‘foraged ingredients and emphasising ethical sourcing’ may be useful, but if you have absolutely no idea where to start then perhaps you should begin by doing a lot more research than ChatGPT can pro- vide,” she adds. “Having recently opened SideChick, I


can tell you that my business plan required a lot more than two pages of repetitive buzz words and three bullet points under the financial plan.”


The offering And now to the food. Can AI generate a tan- talising menu and, crucially, recipes that would work in an actual kitchen? We asked it to ‘create a menu for a sustainability- focused modern British restaurant in Man- chester incorporating foraged ingredients’. The result was a menu of four starters, four main courses, three side dishes, three desserts and three drinks. On first glance, its efforts looked passable, with the exception of the ‘for- aged seafood stew’, a mindboggling dish title that conjures an unappetising image of a chef


34 | The Caterer | 24 November 2023 A design for ‘Leaf & Lantern’, generated by Midjourney


lowering their rod into the River Irwell and putting whatever comes out into a pot. However, when we enlisted a chef to take


a look at the menu his exacting eyes quickly assessed that neither location or availability of ingredients had been considered. George Blogg, executive head chef at


Michelin-starred Gravetye Manor in Sussex, says: “General critical comments for the menu are that it is seasonally all over the place, very vague ingredient-wise and extremely repeti- tive. All four starters are vegetarian, but only one main option is (Parmesan has to be made with animal rennet). There’s lots of fluff with lit- tle substance. Obviously, as a whole, it doesn’t really work, but it could still be a useful tool.” We then asked AI for a recipe for one of its suggested dishes, a main course of pan-seared locally sourced venison, marinated in a juni- per and a foraged berry glaze, accompanied by roasted seasonal vegetables and a nettle purée. After assessing its efforts, Blogg adds: “This


is not for a professional, it is a home cook’s recipe – and not a great one! The veg needs be blanched before roasting or it will be raw or burnt or both if you get the timing right. The nettle purée will be brown if you simmer the nettles for 15 minutes – they should be added at the end. The glaze looks OK, but the venison cookery is, again, very vague: there’s no info on the type of deer or where the steak is cut from. At least I can’t find any spelling mistakes!”


Marketing And so, to the business of drumming up custom for our restaurant. We asked AI to come up with a publicity plan and the result


was again more of a template than the finished article. However, it was fairly comprehensive, comprising 400-odd words and proposing initiatives such as identifying the target audience, building an online presence, con- ducting community engagement, building a database of customers and hosting events. Our expert was fairly impressed. Wright


says: “Obviously I’d have a vested interest in saying ‘No, this is all absolute rubbish, you should only ever use a consultant like me for this’, but actually there’s plenty of good stuff here and it would serve perfectly well as a – very generic – marketing and PR plan. Tem- plates like this have always been available online; I have one, not at all dissimilar to this, which I sometimes share with people who I’m not able to work with or can’t afford me, but who I want to help. “The big flaw of the proposal is that it’s


almost entirely ‘what’ with hardly any ‘how’. How do you develop a website, manage social media channels, prepare a press release? I’ve delivered workshops on the latter (and ‘How to do your own PR’ for food start-ups) at Mis- sion Kitchen and for the Soho Business Asso- ciation; small businesses with small budgets would be better served accessing sessions like these, which are cost-effective and tell you both what to do and how to do it, rather than relying on something free generated by AI.”


Conclusion So, there we have it. It seems that, for now, AI is far from making roles in hospitality redundant, but it is already able to offer sup- port in producing documents and proposals.


www.thecaterer.com





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