According to the American Restaurant Association, and as you may have noticed in your country, the prices of raw materials have increased by 25% in the last five years. This, unfortunately, translates into increasingly lower profit margins.
Faced with this situation, controlling your spending on food is not an option; it is a necessity. Because if you do not, you not only lose money, but your business is in danger of having to close.
The control of costs, your biggest ally
In the School of Online Catering Gastronomic Marketing, we want to help you make your restaurant profitable. With these five essential tactics, you can save yourself from losing money in the purchases of your restaurant. These tips will help you stop losing money and be competitive, and get more benefits.
Control the weekly spending on food and pay attention to your suppliers
There is no better way to control the costs of the ingredients you use than by checking their price.
It may seem logical. But you cannot imagine the number of restaurants that do not know how much they spend or even the price of what they are buying.
Know the cost of each recipe, put a profitable price on your menu, and review it every month
Knowing what it costs to make each of your dishes allows you to not only be helpful in terms of taste but also for your pocket. For this, you must use the scandal.
The scanner helps you know the cost of a plate before doing it and determine the total cost (per person) according to the raw material you use.
Buy in bulk
When it comes to controlling costs in food, whenever possible, buying in bulk will help you save. This means that you take inventory regularly, so you know how much you use for each product, for example, in a week. And thus be able to place orders in large quantities when necessary.
Many restaurants only take advantage of this tactic for large items such as chips, condiments, and paper supplies.
They do not realize that when you buy other items in bulk, you can save even more. Thanks to a good forecast in the management of the restaurant.
Meet with your suppliers quarterly
Suppliers do not offer restaurants, as a rule, a list of rigid and untouchable prices, which means that you have a margin to negotiate.
This is why it is essential to meet periodically with your suppliers to obtain a discount on your most essential products, check prices, and prevent them from increasing. That’s where you’ll find a good tactic to save.
In fact, by implementing this simple tactic, you can save thousands of dollars per quarter on your food expenses and dramatically increase your profit margins.
Being up to date on what suppliers provide you with what product, their prices, pros, and cons when it comes to getting supplies, etc., will allow you to have a global vision and consider changing directly to the provider for another more beneficial.
Search for waste and kill them
We have already mentioned that food represents a third of your budget, but on average, restaurants waste around 70,000 tons of food in the US.
An absolute barbarity against the environment! But, also, this reduces your benefits by a very high percentage.
Indeed, you cannot do anything with the food that comes back from the table of your customers. But you can (and must) act before the food reaches the plate. The best way to reduce and stop waste is to conduct inventories correctly.
If you know how much of each product you need each week, you will also know if someone is placing an excessive order, that three bottles of wine are missing from the store, or which products are less popular with your customers, and therefore they should stop asking for it. Change for others
About Complete Controller® – America’s Bookkeeping Experts Complete Controller is the Nation’s Leader in virtual bookkeeping, providing service to businesses and households alike. Utilizing Complete Controller’s technology, clients gain access to a cloud platform where their QuickBooks™️ file, critical financial documents, and back-office tools are hosted in an efficient SSO environment. Complete Controller’s team of certified US-based accounting professionals provide bookkeeping, record storage, performance reporting, and controller services including training, cash-flow management, budgeting and forecasting, process and controls advisement, and bill-pay. With flat-rate service plans, Complete Controller is the most cost-effective expert accounting solution for business, family-office, trusts, and households of any size or complexity.
