The dirty little secret...

Whenever I discuss Food Cost with operators my intent is innocent, just to learn, whether there may be control issues in the perception of an owner or manager.

It frankly seems, that this is an area where some opera-tors need help: from their responses one can take it, they most likely "grab a number out of thin air".

Something they have heard others say, an industry number say, from the NRA website... why is that?

Well, there is work involved, frankly a lot of work. And know how, how you really establish the numbers? My cross check question to "what is your Food Cost?" is then some time later: "How often do you count (your inventory)?" Believe it: for some folks the answer is "never". Without counting the starting- and ending inventory a Food Cost number is nothing but an estimate.

Now, there are different ways to "skin a cat". Some people will do a weekly inventory count (best), others will do monthly (not so good); when I studied hotel & restau-rant management, we were tought the simple truth: "at least make it appear as if you control your food cost."

Our Accounts Payable workflow is a whole new way of doing inventory management, without the complexity of inventory management: we provide 100 % of all items procured. No puchase orders, no manual data entry. Call me, Bernie, if you wish to explore this in more detail.

480 282 8482.