Archive for September, 2010

Plan and Prioritize your Party Budget

Wednesday, September 29th, 2010

Here are some helpful tips to consider as you get ready for upcoming holiday parties at the home or office.

1. In case you are allocated a budget from the very start, select how much you want to spend on food and drinks ahead of anything else.

• Food and beverage expenses must come before other costs. Settle on the food and beverage expense and utilize the remaining for entertainment.
• The menu typically requires being pre-ordered. So if you have budget restrictions, consume more on food as it is not easy to request additional food. People can always buy drinks lest they fizzle out of drinks voucher or the host goes dry on alcohol. But, that is not the case with food.

2. Begin by having a look at the previous parties you’ve had in case you do not have a budget.

• You can get a fair idea about how much to spend for food, drinks, location rentals, prizes, entertainment, etc. by looking at the Christmas parties (or other party occasions) held during the previous years.

3. Along the lines of your food budget, schedule your main event.

• You would require providing a dinner serving of food for events that start before 8pm. A dinner serving menu would cost roughly $50 per person regardless of the style of dinner you choose.
• Or go for a snack option and have the event start after 8pm. In this case, you can offer a snack on arrival and to soak up the alcohol that may be in wheelchair accessories or cup holders, you can offer a late snack after 11pm. For this snack option, you can budget about $20 per head.

4. Think smart about the bar options.

• Think beyond cash bar, drink tickets, a drink holder, and host bar. Be innovative and consider something like a host bar restricted to specific beverage, host bar restricted to a particular costs value and a host bar restricted to a specific period.
• You can lessen the bar price substantially if you restrict your host bar from shooters. It also helps to keep the party orderly and not out of control due to wild behavior which often accompany an alcoholic beverage in a person’s cup holder.

5. In order to reduce costs and stress always choose a full service venue.

• A full service venue acts as a single core center for food, drinks and service staff. Moreover, having service staff as part of the food and drinks package decreases the costs to a significant level.

6. To reduce costs further, select a venue which has inbuilt decor and A/V systems

• Why not select a location that already contains good ambience and acoustic equipments? Restaurants and lounges are a perfect option and you don’t actually need to do anything at all.

7. Split your total budget to cost per person.

• By splitting up the total budget, you can get a more personalized look and concentrate on details of each individual. This is much easier than toiling over the general budget.

No more TALL cups for Drive-Thru Customers?

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

When you last ordered your Starbucks coffee from the drive-thru menu did you miss the ‘TALL’ cup? Many people did. Starbucks is one of the leading coffee chains and they have now been accused and some may say rightly so for being greedy enough to make their drive-thru customers suffer for it. There is a huge uproar over this and the customers alongside the media have created a huge fuss over the entire deal.

Starbucks fans have been deeply hurt by this as this is a very popular company and a very popular brand to sip from your drink holder on your daily commute. Company individuals have said that the company has resorted to this because they wanted to make the drive thru menu simpler for the serving staff as well as the people who were ordering it. But critics say that there have been other bigger companies with menus much more elaborate than the one that Starbucks has , say food and beverage companies like Mc Donald’s who has survived drive-thru competition and is doing well for themselves while also keeping their customers happy. Angry customers though are refusing to buy this theory, saying that it is just greed on the company’s part that is driving it to do such outrageous things.

The issue is that Starbucks sells coffee in three cup sizes TALL, GRANDE and VENTI. The customers argue that since the TALL one comes as the cheapest amongst these it has been intentionally removed from the list. The company has to say to that, that they still will serve TALL cups just that it will be removed from their menus. This has brought angry remarks from customers, that they’re expected to remember there is a TALL option.

There is another side to the story, there are many people who are against the drive-thru culture and they have seen this as a welcome move. The idea they say is to keep the coffee culture alive and not mechanize the process. The argument here being that coffee is handcrafted and that it is not in the category of ‘fast-food’ and since drive-thru is essentially a concept developed for the fast food people. These folks would rather see customers drink from a cup holder inside, or not use a cup holder at all.

Still the customer, a large number of them loyal, is unhappy and the corporate giant has to bear the brunt of it. It has given the company a bad name and has caused distaste for all the loyal customers it had built in the many years. It now has to wait and watch to see how the company finally caters to the uproar. (Reminds us of when we offered them a deal to add our cup holder to their branded wheelchair accessories product line.)

Health Problems Faced By Children Due To Vended Food

Tuesday, September 28th, 2010

The vendors who sell food items in common places like right outside schools are the major cause of numerous health related problems amongst children. Poor quality of diet is a prime consequence of such food consumption and a popular and important food and beverage issue. The school children are affected by problems like obesity, which sets the path for incoming of further health problems and chronic diseases. This has also been proven by a research report from the University of Michigan Medical School. The research has shown other facts that the consumption of food by school stores, snack bars and similar sales are equally contributing to onset of deadly diseases like diabetes and coronary artery disease.

Madhuri Kakarala, M.D., Ph.D., clinical lecturer of internal medicine at U-M Medical School has said it is the early habits of children that are later reflected on their food consuming habits as they grow older. The studies prior to this have revealed that the nutritional values have gradually reduced and the adverse effects it is causing to school children are mainly due to competitive foods and beverages at sale in vending machines and other snack bars. (What’s your child drinking from their cup holder?)

The food intake data was analyzed by researchers from about 2309 children studying in 1-12 grades in various schools across the country. An average of 22 percent of children intake vended food. Among all the high schools, 88 percent of the schools had active selling vending machines. Competitive food consumers have high sugar content, low fiber and vitamin B levels, when compared to non-consumers. Soft drinks and other beverages in stores and vending machines are most commonly consumed instead of beverages like milk and fruit juices. Snack chips, crackers, cookies, cakes, ice cream and candies are also added in list of vended food. An important fact in this study is that there is no discrimination on the consumption based on family income, race or ethnicity. So eve those using wheelchair accessories are just as much at risk as those who don’t.)

According to Kakarala, only a healthy food environment can help reduce the dietary risks amongst the school children. The study authors have asked the school administrators to design specific guidelines that check the consumption of competitive food and beverages. The schools have also been recommended to encourage health promoting food items like milk or juice in a drink holder, sandwiches, fresh fruits etc.

Kakarala says that smarter eating choices can be made by enforcing healthy school food policies and resources. It is a great risk for the children to rely on food of vending machines and thus, the food items must be over a USDA-choice lunch or should be home made.