We’ve all heard them a hundred times over but after 15 years of regular interrogation over a simple percentage value, I felt the need to add my version to the pool as well.
1. Get Everyone Involved
There are a lot of staff out there that are not responsible for any figures and simply couldn’t care less about cost control. These people aren’t doing you any favours at all.
Hold a full staff meeting (casuals, juniors, everyone) and explain the process to them. Show them the current figures and explain what they need to look like at the end of the month for the business to continue operating. Let them know that they all share responsibility and they all must play an active role in cost management. Share rough figures mid-month and whether you’re tracking well or not.
Once staff take ownership and understand the potential impact on the business and their job security, there should be an overall shift in attitude, a gradual reduction in wastage, and hopefully reduce the stress and focus on the kitchen. You may even find that some of your food no longer goes “missing” on your day off too.
2. Watch What the Customers are Wasting
Keep an eye on the food that’s left on plates when they come back, or ask the dishy to keep a rough tab. Try to identify any patterns between dishes and between ingredients.
This can either provide an opportunity to reduce portion sizes on an item, or it could even identify a quality issue somewhere in the kitchen.
3. Review Your Purchasing and Your Suppliers
It shouldn’t need to be said that the menu should reflect produce that's local and in season as it's more cost effective, and likewise with brand comparisons on your dry store products.
But depending on who you have available in your area, it could be worth chatting to your suppliers to see if they have access to anything outside of their typical range. If there’s a possibility to consolidate suppliers then this may create an opportunity to discuss better pricing, considering you could potentially double or triple your volume with one of them.
4. Training
Assess the kitchen teams’ culinary skills, especially if you have casuals that just cover your days off who you rarely see. Even suss out the condition of everyone’s knives - a chef with average knife skills and blunt tools could be costing more than you think.
Cross-training staff between departments may or may not work in your favour. Training the ‘Glassie’ to do basic prep and even cold larder can work well if FOH isn’t busy. Also, teaching the kitchen hand to do bar work or wait tables may assist with tightening up labour costs, providing the cost is transferred. However it tends to go the other way when FOH are short on staff and they ask the ‘dishy’ to collect glasses and clear tables while you’re getting smashed with dockets.
5. Review Your Equipment
Upgrading or purchasing new equipment may reduce workload by speeding up, or replacing, a manual task. It may even allow you to do a job that you currently pay your suppliers to do, for example, slice your own meat instead of purchasing it already sliced. In a situation like this, the savings would of course have to outweigh the increase in labour.
It could even be a new Combi oven to replace your out-dated gas one allowing you to significantly increase your productivity and volume, it expands the cooking methods available to you, and it can be automated.
"I do understand the irony of installing a $25,000 machine when the point is to try and cut costs :)"
6. Outsource Labour-Heavy or Highly-Skilled Tasks
And to completely contradict the first comment made in the previous point, is there a labour-intensive task, or a skilled task, that your supplier could be taking care of for you. A simple example is having your steaks already portioned. There would be no wastage, better size consistency, and better control of the food-cost for that dish. Even if it works out slightly more expensive compared to the cost of labour if doing it in house, you may be able to utilise that time by introducing a new task that would reduce cost’s even further, like making a dessert from scratch that would normally be brought in for example.
7. Prepare for Downtime or Slow Nights
If you have an unexpected slow night and are stuck with full-time staff that can’t be sent home, have something planned in advance and ready-to-go which can be started and completed in the same time as a typical service period. Look for something that you can buy in bulk at a cheaper rate that will keep in the dry store until needed. It may be wet dishes that can be cooked then frozen down or whatever it might be. It’s far more productive than having them scrubbing the legs on the benches and tearing the dry store apart to wipe down the shelves just to keep busy. This is important too but leave it for the kitchenhand to take care of.
It may not be top of the list for cost cutting but it’ll put back-up prep in the freezer and you made good use of the four hours of labour that was going to be paid regardless.
8. Technology and Correct Calculations
Ensure that your dishes are costed correctly and that you’re making the required margin. A lot of times a dish gets costed and then never reviewed, however the cost of goods can fluctuate often and can sometimes see several small increases over a 12 month period. All of a sudden your 30% has become 20%.
If costing dishes is going to be a part of your life for some time then it’s worth investing in some software to help manage it and speed the process up. Look for one that you can upload pricing into and that will populate and update the dishes automatically. Also look for one that can create different menus from the dishes that are entered. That way you can put together a quick function menu and instantly know what the cost of goods are.
It can be done in MS Excel without too much trouble providing you have basic/intermediate knowledge of the program. For pricing updates, ask your suppliers to provide you with a spread sheet whenever there’s a price adjustment, which maintains the same format each time, then just copy and paste it over the one in the program to update anything linked to it. The initial setup would be painful but the ongoing maintenance would be a five minute job. Here's a single recipe Food Costing Template you can download if it helps.
Also, review sales reports which can be downloaded from the POS. You already have a good idea of what sells well and what doesn’t but reviewing the data might uncover trends that haven’t been so obvious. Compare sales of low profit dishes to sales of high profit dishes and make sure there’s a good balance or you may need to make an adjustment on the dish or the price. Remove dishes with slow sales volume if possible. Either replace it or put in on the specials board for a while and make adjustments every few days or so to see if a slight modification increases sales.
9. Track and Measure Wastage
Create a graph that lists your service or prep periods down the left side, such as “Lunch” and “Dinner” and then across the top add several categories that contribute to food waste. They could be “Over-Production”, “Errors”, “Spoilage” etc. Run with it for several weeks to see if it reveals anything. Fill the chart with a percentage, a dollar value, the actual products wasted, or whatever works for your venue.
It should reveal a particular period that contributes to the majority of food waste which can then be narrowed down to a number of things such as the menu, the employee, theft, etc.
10. Review Sizes of Portioning Equipment
Reduce the sizes of service ware, even the plate sizes, on self-serve buffets. Albeit, a customer can return for more but there will be a lot that still won’t empty the plate and not go back.
The same goes for restaurant service. If a spoon is used to scoop mash onto the plate, is it always the same size spoon and are the scoops consistent in size.
Also, if using moulds for portioning, such as a cup, you may find that using a different shape mould can create the impression of more being on the plate while actually reducing the portion size.
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