Driving Efficiency in your Restaurant

Restaurants are navigating inflating prices across almost all purchases, here we share a few best practices on mitigating the squeeze.

It all starts with your menu.

Having a reduced, simple, and agile menu can make adaptations easier and allow you to massify your purchases.

• Read up on the latest market trends to make informed purchase decisions prior to ordering. This can also help you to see if you have highly inflationary products on there, and if so, swap them out for a similar ingredient, or even dish.
• Systematically offer a dish of the day according to price trends for maximum flexibility.
•  Optimise plate portions, working on plate coverage, analysing plate return, and subsequently adjusting portions can be a quick win on lowering costs.

Controlling inventory goes hand in hand with the above, and something we know can be time consuming for most businesses. Entegra eases this laborious task through a simple user-friendly system which records and tracks your food spend, inventory, and a whole lot more, improving both efficiency and margins. 

 

How does the cost of an ingredient translate to its cost on the menu?

Understand your food cost percentage. Keeping on top of how much an ingredient is, versus how much you charge for it on your menu, can help with calculating your food cost percentage, in other words, total cost of ingredients divided by the menu item price. The aim should be to have this at around 15-30%, providing a 70-85% gross revenue on the item. We encourage our clients to adopt regular food cost control as best practice, you can identify any high food cost and remove or reduce it. This way, you reduce your cost and increase your gain.

 

Revisit how you tackle food waste.

We know that food waste is one of the main drivers of money wastage in restaurants. Be aware of how much consumers are leaving behind on their plates, it might mean reconsidering your portion sizes to reduce wastage. Re-using any leftover ingredients in a different dish can be beneficial at reducing wastage, get innovative and you will save perfectly good ingredients whilst controlling spend.

 

A tip for waste reduction is to create your menu based on your current inventory, instead of the opposite. Creating a special or dish of the day with food that needs to be used, either before it spoils or is not fit for original purpose, re-purpose it! Strawberries meant for a dessert which are misshapen could be used in a smoothie for instance.

 

 

 

Optimise your supply chain.

• Optimising your supply chain can also assist with cost control. Could you consider a reduction of delivery days, advance ordering and wherever possible, stockholding?

 

• Keep a pulse on the market, so you are aware of volatile commodities ahead of time, and can avoid certain products on upcoming menu changes. As an example, vegetable oil pricing is currently at a 10-year high and supplies of rapeseed, soya, sunflower and palm oils are all reduced as demand for exports to China are up 40% year on year.

 

 

 

How can we support you?

Entegra deliver regular market trend reports, enabling you to make more informed purchasing decisions.

As your purchasing partner, we see ourselves as an extension of your team, assisting with not only lowering food cost, but advisory services to improve business performance. Our team is made up of ex operators, chefs, analysts, and buyers.

Part of the Sodexo family, larger purchasing volumes allow us to secure a higher discount than individual restaurants would be able to negotiate alone.

By negotiating on behalf of thousands of hospitality outlets, we obtain more attractive rates and below market prices. In addition, our consultants audit your invoices and highlight your savings! In the current climate, there has been no better time to pool your purchases and start making savings without compromising on quality.

 

Reach out to us today to chat about how we can support your priorities.