Two words that surely send a shiver though even the most fearless of chefs “Food Cost”. The sound of those words surely sends a chill up the spines of chefs all over the world on a daily basis. Heart rates are inflated by it. Bonuses are forfeited because of it. Job security hinges on it. It is certainly one of the most thin-skinned topics in the culinary industry. Even the threat of; “if you can’t do it we will find someone that can”.

I propose that more often than not, the cause of the stress isn’t in fact the food costs themselves, but the boundless discrepancy between managers/ so called “experts” and chefs regarding what the magical “idyllic” or “speculative” food cost should be. Depending on which side of the battle line they are on, each member of the management team uses their own “gut feeling” to assault or safeguard the monthly food cost number, a feeling that is influenced by industry averages, experience and/ or GOP desperation.

But feelings can get in the way of reality. By monitoring food costs based upon some subjective digit instead of investing the time to calculate the ultimate food cost, management can be guilty of criticizing a kitchen staff’s performance when the costs are in line or, worse, be lulled into food cost smugness when the costs are running two to three percentage points off the mark. The best gauge of a culinary operations food cost is an internally developed standard based upon an analysis of inventory, recipes, menu sales mix and price structure.

In layman terms, an ideal food cost is the number that will end up on the monthly food cost grand stand if all goes as planned. It is the cumulative cost of all ingredients that should have been used, based upon your recipe costs and sales mix. There is nothing subjective about it.

The trick is identifying all of the menu items and associated condiments that go out to your customers/ guests, pinpointing each item’s recipe ingredients, calculating the cost of preparing each recipe based on current inventory prices and ensuring that you have a system in place for tracking and analyzing the menu sales mix. Depending on the size and complexity of your menu, that can be about as much fun as a trip to the dentist.

Luckily, your back office computer is capable of take a grand chunk out of the pen work associated to the costing of your menu. Currently, there are numerous software programs on the market that have simplified the grueling task of menu costing, replacing the mind-numbing manual recipe cost sheets with “electronic” cost sheets that can update your recipes “on the go” for adjustments in ingredients, portion sizes, inventory costs and/ or menu prices. Best of all, the programs are designed to be “user friendly,” so you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to operate one.

Yes, you still have to sift through the pile of purchase orders to find the up to date cost of Black Angus rib eye and make sure that the agreed number of dill sprigs per portion is strictly adhered to, however the grandeur of these programs is that once the inventory and recipes have been entered, you have a database that is packed full of priceless information on inventory usage, purchase trends and menu item profitability that would take many tedious labor hours to gather manually.

So stop making excuses. If you want to replace the monthly food cost guessing game with food cost answerability, then get serious about getting a firm grasp on your food costs. The money you save may very well go to beefing up the bottom line.

What system based program are you using to assist you to keep tabs on your food cost?

Image Credit: artdiamondblog.com

Popularity: 1% [?]

Currently 1 comment - But what do you think?

After you have your item list broken down into purchase units (e.g. case) and inventory units (e.g. #10 can), you can begin to visualize the production process. For each ingredient, make a list of units commonly called in recipes. This will vary depending on how many different recipes use each item.

Three common portion methods for recipe ingredients are weight, volume and count. Meat items are often portioned by weight and count. When portioning by the piece, you may have more than one portion size. A strip steak could be sold in two or three portion sizes. For each portion size, imagine the entire strip will be used. You need to answer a simple question. How many steaks would you expect if you only cut the one size from the strip? Repeat the exercise for each portion size.

Use the average weight for popular random weight items. Generally, each case will always have the same number of large cuts (ribs, strips, loins, etc.). The total case weight will vary. Huge weight variances from the average will impact the number of portions per piece. It helps to keep accurate records of the butchering and fabrication process.

Yields may change from week to week. If you expected an 80% yield for a particular cut and you actually hit a 70% figure, your costs would run higher by over 11%. The variance is due to the poor yield alone. Add a price variance and some spoilage and the gross margin will begin to disappear. Portion control steaks provide operators with a consistent yield – one portion. When deciding to purchase portion control meat, you need to consider the hidden costs. Look at the whole picture including labor, equipment, risk of injury, and poor yield in your comparison.

Items portioned by volume or weight are straight forward. It is helpful to know the common conversion units for each method. Volume is expressed in gallons, quarts, pints, cups, liters, fluid ounces, milliliters, shots, tablespoons, teaspoons and fractions of each. Weight may be expressed in pounds, ounces, kilograms, grams, etc. A #10 can has about 6 pints (96 fluid ounces) and often about 6 pounds. Check all weight to volume relationships.

When developing standards, you may find your specifications are different than some of the excellent books. If you trim your produce quickly, the yield will probably be lower than the expectation. One way to reduce the variance is to portion produce items by the piece. A 24 head case of iceberg lettuce will yield 144 wedges if sliced in six pieces per head. Cutting the heads into larger wedges of four per head would yield only 96 portions.

Think of this step as the recipe model equivalent of the prep process. Having accurate recipe costs depends on accurate unit and yield data. The recipe costing programs will re-cost your recipes over and over as prices change. Spend the time initially to get this critical information correct for your operation. Don’t worry about benchmarks for portion size. Use your unique portion sizes in determining the conversions between inventory count units and the units called for in recipes.

Joe Dunbar
Dunbar Associates
(703) 425-6052
(202) 315-3664 eFax
jdunbar401@aol.com
www.joedunbar.com

Image Credit Flickr.com

Popularity: 3% [?]

Currently 1 comment - But what do you think?

You may have lots of cookbooks, proprietary recipes, books with food yield statistics, market data, shopping lists, inventory count sheets, supplier quotes, product mix reports, quarterly tracking reports and other documents. A professional recipe model should be designed to integrate all of this useful information. The person working on this project needs to wear many hats: purchasing agent, steward, prep cook, line cook, and chef.

Rather than using a cookbook approach, start with your shopping lists. Use your shopping lists to create a spreadsheet with all your ingredients. Make columns for the name, category, primary supplier, purchase unit, storage area and storage unit.

Since the unit you purchase is used on orders, this is our starting point. It’s helpful to know your alternate sources for each ingredient. You may want to categorize each item by the storage method. For example, frozen, refrigerated, dry bulk, canned goods, frozen goods, baked goods, etc. Feel free to add these columns. It’s impossible to get too much information for your ingredient list.

[We'll eventually need to know the usage units for each ingredient and portion information. This will be discussed in Part2 (later this month).]

Once the list begins to come together, envision the flow for each item from loading dock to the table. Most items are purchased by the case and are stored as purchased. Some items are immediately transformed into other items through fabrication. Visualize the process of moving from the purchased unit of measure to the storage unit of measure first.

You may simply remove six #10 cans from a case and place the cans in a rack. The purchase unit is case and the storage unit is a #10 can. Focus on the storage unit and the divisor (6 in our example). Breaking down every item you purchase into logical storage units is one of the most important steps in creating a professional recipe costing model.

Each #10 can is valued at 1/6 of the case cost. Don’t worry about the actual cost of each can. Focus on the number of storage units in each purchase unit.

Our work will eventually involve many calculations using units of measure, various blends, yield formulas, conversions, reciprocals and standard portion data. The simple exercise of developing a purchase unit to storage unit model is the ideal starting point. Once you complete this exercise, future conversion work will be more intuitive.

Joe Dunbar
Dunbar Associates
(703) 425-6052
(202) 315-3664 eFax
jdunbar401@aol.com
www.joedunbar.com

Image Credit Flickr.com

Popularity: 3% [?]

Currently 1 comment - But what do you think?

One of the toughest challenges in our industry is staffing a year round operation with a short, very busy tourist season. There are seasonal challenges. It’s necessary to grow the staff before the peak days for training purposes. Often the best staff from the peak season are asked to help either part-time or full-time in the decline. Unfortunately, it is sometimes necessary to cut battle tested help during the low months.

I have seen some excellent strategies in play at seasonal operations. The common denominator is a strong core staff onboard year round. Most of the top operators have a flex-staff available whenever they are needed. These part-time people are typically well compensated and fill in gaps at big parties or special events. A number of savvy operators take advantage of college internships when hiring for the peak season.

During this month, I have received quite a few emails from those who wish to remain anonymous. I want to encourage all readers to participate in this dialogue. Specifically, tell us what works and does not work in your seasonal staffing strategy.

We had to staff the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary to handle food service and housekeeping for the media and the Nordic athletes at Canmore. The two weeks took place during the school year and little help was available from local students. Housing of out-of-town help was cost prohibitive. Our contract specified top notch food service at each venue.

To give every detail of our strategy would take too long for this blog. We rented trailers used in the arctic to house personnel and borrowed old school buses from local districts to bus our help. The workers were recruited from all over Canada. Most of the staff would have been chefs at their normal workplace. These pros were happy to help out Canada in it’s bid to host a memorable two weeks for the athletes.

The Nordic athletes like lots of carbohydrates. You can’t offer too many grains and starches. Macaroni and cheese is a favorite. They really do not load up on sweets. The diet is very nutritious and I would imagine marathon runners would be at home in a Nordic camp.

Our chefs adapted rapidly to the demands and produced high quality meals which satisfied the athletes. Our team received accolades for the wonderful quality and attention to patron wishes. In the end, it was tough to see all the talented people leave our company and return to their positions around the country. Seasonal operators do this each and every year.

Image Credit: dvdmerwe

Joe Dunbar
Dunbar Associates
(703) 425-6052
(202) 315-3664 eFax
jdunbar401@aol.com
www.joedunbar.com

Popularity: 2% [?]

Currently 0 comment - But what do you think?