Cost is one of the biggest costs in the restaurant business, which directly affects the financial result of the company and requires special attention. In unstable times it is very important to control and monitor the cost of production, because otherwise with constant price changes the restaurant will suffer significant financial losses.
Today we are going to talk about how the chef affects the cost of production, and what tools should be used to get the correct result.
There are two types of cost of sales:
Net cost is the average ss of a group of dishes for which the chef is directly responsible. It is formed at the stage of creating the menu under the influence of the price of incoming raw materials, as well as working with products that have an unstable waste ratio.
Cost of demand – the cost of production, taking into account guest demand. This type is mostly influenced by the manager, as he is responsible for the sales of waiters in the hall.
Cost may change, and it is important to react to its changes in time. It is necessary to track its overall dynamics by month, by category and then more detailed “fall” into the cost of groups.
To control changes in the waste ratio, you make a list of raw materials with unstable waste ratio and check the raw materials from this list at each delivery.
Another tool to keep track of the cost of recipes is the recipe development schedule. According to it, the chef works through one dish every day and tracks changes in raw material waste ratios. We recommend doing such analysis weekly to be able to respond to changes in time.
In terms of cost of sales, the chef is also responsible for write-offs in the “kitchen” category. To manage write-offs it is important to divide them into items and ration them. Track the dynamics from month to month and weekly.
The chef also has a direct influence on inventory results. Surpluses and shortages must also be rationed and tracked from month to month. Dividing the amount of surplus and shortages by the revenue, we get the % of discrepancies. It is important to note that we add up the surpluses and shortages modulo, as the surpluses are also losses.
What items cause surpluses and shortages to appear. There are several kinds of sorting:
by amount, by quantity
by % of turnover losses (when we divide the amount of surplus or shortages by the consumption of this raw material for the analyzed period).
Based on the results, we recommend conducting inventory committees where the top items of surpluses and shortages are examined in detail. For effective work with the results of the inventory, each position of the “top surplus and shortages” is parsed by the RAP technique (Problem – Reason – Solution).
According to the technique of PPP, each problem has several causes and each cause has several solutions.
After the committee on the inventory is a plan of work with deadlines and those responsible.
