Delighted head chef at Bastion Hotel
Corazon Furuseth has worked for three years as head chef, and now also F&B Manager, at the Nordic Choice Clarion Collection Bastion Hotel in central Oslo. She explains that using the procurement portal at Choice has definitely made her working day far easier.
I buy all our goods via By@Choice. The odd exception is when a supplier has sold out of something or we have to change our menus at short notice. Head chefCorazon Furuseth
At CC Bastionen there are several people who make purchases, so they have become very good at working together and helping each other out with purchasing.
I place orders via the portal four days a week due to different supplier delivery days. If I don’t have time, my colleagues can easily go into the system and place orders for me.
Easy to use
Corazon is quick to emphasise how easy the portal is to use once you are accustomed to the system. She says that she has received excellent training and follow-up from the service centre at Choice, as well as on-site training from Millum.
The most important thing is to learn the functions, and then set your own routines for working with the portal. Everything you need is there, you just need to get used to using the functions you need.
While Corazon finds that virtually everything works optimally, it is the search function that has caused the most problems.
It’s great that the new procurement portal comes with a better search function. I look forward to using it!
Loves the shopping lists
I absolutely love the shopping list function! It’s so simple! The shopping lists work really well and help me tremendously in the ordering process. It’s by far my favourite feature of the procurement portal! I also like how it works alongside inventory. I find the whole setup very simple, and I’m now hearing that it’s coming in offline mode, which is excellent!
Occasionally, something Corazon wants is out of stock or has passed its use-by date, which has often meant phone calls back and forth to find a solution.
But I’ve since learnt that the system is incredibly good at suggesting and finding alternative products. I think that’s brilliant, it’s so easy!
Conscious purchaser
There is no randomness to what Corazon purchases. She works systematically to keep product costs down. No food goes to waste here, and the Bastionen has a very low amount of discarded food. Corazon says that she always plans the meals based on what’s in stock.
I’m constantly looking for a good offer, and am very conscious of prices and finances. That’s why it’s great when suppliers have special offers on, which we get information about in the portal. I always use them to stock up a bit.
The Bastionen is now one of the best hotels in the Choice system when it comes to the cost of goods.
That’s really good news and makes me very proud. I’ve been keeping up and have seen that goods costs have fallen since I started here, which is fantastic!
Menu Bank promises good things
Bastionen has only just started using Menu Bank in the procurement portal. For Corazon, this will mean yet another function that will make her working life easier.
I’m really looking forward to using Menu Bank, I think it’ll be great. It will mean a whole new flow of information between the kitchen and waiting staff. We’re already very serious about gluten and dairy free food, but at the moment we do all the labelling manually. So it’ll be nice to have everything already marked up on a sheet of paper!
Quite simply an easier working day
Altogether, I’m very satisfied with Millum Procurement (By@Choice). It has everything I need for my working day, all in one place. There’s no doubt it makes my working life easier.
