Incentivise your chef - Viewpoint
Do you think enough incentives are offered to chefs working in the pub industry?
Kim Scicluna, Licensee/chef, the Sun Inn, Feering, nr Colchester, Essex
"No. Nearly all kids today go to university and then expect to get a job in London earning £30,000 a year. Nobody wants to learn a trade, particularly this one, with its unsociable hours and pressures, because they feel there are no rewards. That makes it very difficult to recruit good staff. In the past I've had trouble finding decent chefs and have learnt that the only way to get them is to pay more. After all, if you pay peanuts, you'll get monkeys."
Tony Riley, general manager, the Villa Country House Hotel, Wrea Green, Lancashire
"Ten to 15 years ago, chefs were not given the credit that they are now. These days good chefs are few and far between and so it is worth paying well to keep them. I work for the Mercury Inns Group and we offer our chefs a complete package - a good salary, GP-based bonus scheme, training, even their chef's whites."
Killian Callender, head chef, the Merrie Harriers, Cowbeech, Herstmonceux, East Sussex
"A lot of owners offer a profit-based bonus scheme but it comes with a low salary, and that tends to mean that there's not much profit to be had. I tend to look for a higher basic salary rather than a bonus that is not guaranteed. If bonuses are given they should be performance related and at the boss's discretion rather than related to profit. This often leads to pennypinching and cost-cutting that shouldn't happen."
Tony Robson-Burrell, chef/proprietor, the Wheatsheaf, Oaksey, nr Malmesbury, Wiltshire
"I think that a lot of pub owners these days do offer their chefs incentives. They're looking for the right GP and so they offer them a basic salary plus a bonus for anything above, for example 70% GP that they achieve. The trouble is that a lot of chefs don't achieve that figure as they haven't got any business acumen. I run a training consultancy aimed at achieving 'the complete chef'; someone who can cook but who also knows their way around a daily gross profit sheet."
