Portion Control is an effective way to control food cost at the Production Phase of the Food Service Cycle. Here are a six simple Portion Control techniques: Document Recipes Providing documented recipes that clearly communicates the standard portion sizes provides the foundation for effective portion control. Plate Presentation Photos Photograph each menu item and display… Read More »
If you buy the notion of working smarter vs. harder, the 80/20 principle is certainly a great starting point. When a restaurateur searches for the 20% of his operation producing the 80% impact, I’d like to suggest a simple method. The 4 V’s stand for volume, variance, volatility and value. It is important to focus… Read More »
All menus have some Plough Horses (also known as Cash Cows). The profitability/contribution metric used in the Menu Engineering Model is based on an average. The nature of an average means there will always be some items below the average. Assuming all items meet the popularity benchmark, any items below the average are Plough… Read More »
Inventory management is time consuming and takes our focus away from building sales and providing a great customer experience. The Pareto Principal states that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. In other words: 20% of your stock items make up %80 of your stock value. By focusing on the high value… Read More »
In an age of plentiful refrigeration and high tech packaging it is possible to purchase a wide range of pre-made, pre-cut, pre-processed ingredients and even complete meals, ready to serve. In this post we look at some of the pro’s and con’s of purchasing pre-prepare ingredients/meals. Pro’s of Out-sourcing Reduce labor. Suitably experienced staff are… Read More »
Here are some tips if you suspect you are loosing stock due to theft: 1. Control access to your store rooms. Install locks and keep them locked when not attended. 2. Control/monitor access to your kitchen/stores from the back door. Monitoring may include CCTV cameras, an alarm on the door or as simple as paying more… Read More »
I have used the Recipe Template above for some time. It is ideal for documenting, printing and laminating your recipes for use in the kitchen. The template includes both Batch and Production recipe templates, along with an ingredient list. I hope you find it useful.
In a slow economy cutting back is an obvious way to maintain the profitability of your food operation. However, the impact of cost minimisation on the bottom line is often underestimated. For example: If you have a net profit of 10%, each dollar you save by reducing costs is equivalent to making a sale of… Read More »
This month, I noticed an urgency in 3 restaurant chains which would be out of the question in the past. Top level financial officers have made the dive into inventory control including batch recipe models for work in progress inventory. Calling late at night, I found the CFO of a 35 unit chain in the… Read More »
Costed recipes are an essential tool for any food operation. Without accurately costed recipes there is no of knowing if your product offering is profitable or if your financial performance is on target. Theoretical Vs. Actual With costed recipes and sales mix information it is possible to calculate the theoretical food cost. This then enables… Read More »