Food prices are soaring. Consumers don’t want to spend. Fuel costs a fortune. Labor is more expensive. You can’t do anything about this. Here’s what you can do to control costs, according to a round table of food-service experts at NRA.
Know what you’re buying. All of the experts extolled the virtues of amassing real-time data. Not only can you discover where to streamline your vendors — consolidating 50 sources of ham to a handful, for example — you can make sure your locations are actually buying from those handful of ham suppliers.
Audit, audit, audit. You can make a great deal with your distributor, but that doesn’t help you if all your operations aren’t paying the correct price. “On average, 1.2 percent to 1.8 percent of food costs come from mispriced items,” said William Yaglou, executive vice president of customer development at Instill Corporation. Those pricing discrepancies can add up to big bucks. Ron Hall, vice president of Senior Resources Alliance, caught fairly large discrepancies in coffee, chemicals and fuel – discrepancies that added up to $16,000 over 3 months.
Evaluate portions and ingredients. Do you need to use large eggs, or will medium eggs do? Can you use thinner slices of cheese on sandwiches? Do you really need to use only white-meat chicken in chicken salad ? Every bit helps.
Economists are your friends. Dairy Queen International works with an economist to project where prices are going, said Michael Ochs, vice president of supply chain services. The company can then lock in deals with distributors for 12 to 18 month, avoiding price fluctuations.
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