Tackling rising costs this winter
allmanhall are food procurement experts, supporting foodservice providers in the full management of the catering supply chain and also offering consultative advice.
A number of the allmanhall team are ex-caterers themselves and here we explore their hands-on, practical advice, along with some insights allmanhall have gleaned from working closely with clients to solve current challenges…
This winter, the traditional tools and methods employed by foodservice operators and catering teams to tackle rising costs are proving to be insufficient to counter the increasingly relentless rise of both food costs and other overheads.
Even when managing a flexible budget, control of food spend will not necessarily off-set the additional costs across the entire operation, such a labour and utilities – namely rising energy costs.
As every foodservice provider knows, it is vital to have an accurate costing model that provides a comprehensive understanding of all the contributing costs across the catering operation. Full visibility of the fixed and especially variable (controllable) costs is essential and the commercial, profit driven catering model focusing on ‘percentage margins' is a mindset that allmanhall are seeing an increasing number of consumption-based catering clients turning to.
Keeping track of this data, and nimbly controlling variable costs whilst also battling increasing food prices can protect your foodservice operation from excessive spending on ingredients, labour, and energy costs. Having the flexibility to adapt menus quickly, utilising a range of alternative ingredients will help alleviate the rising prices and ensure the production of cost viable dishes whilst still producing high quality and nutritional menus.
Here are some practical ways to best cope with food inflation:
1. Flex your recipes
Reviewing and regularly recalculate your menu to enable you to determine the biggest cost component of your recipes, typically the protein content.
One way to manage this cost is to reduce the use of premium cuts of meat and substitute them with less expensive cuts of meat such as lamb neck and chicken thighs.
It's a good idea to review every ingredient in your recipe, to establish the total cost and yield of each dish. For example, is it cheaper to use smaller quantities of extra mature cheddar cheese rather than mature cheddar in your sauces? Will there be more wastage if you use wonky or frozen vegetables rather than class 1 vegetables for stews and casseroles? Will the yield of your fish pie be affected if you reduce the salmon content for more haddock or swap to frozen fish, or use less cream and more milk? Should you substitute rice with potatoes?
Being able to purchase strategically by calculating every penny of your recipe's components, enables you to make quicker decisions and reap the financial benefits.
2. Increase in-house production
Are you purchasing preprepared chopped fruit and vegetables, stocks and readymade sauces? Savings may be achievable by increasing in-house preparation.
However, a cost benefit analysis is still recommended – as it is important to factor in additional costs of this, such as: energy, labour, equipment depreciation. Batch cooking is a good way of saving time and increasing production output for the same labour input.
Some operations have the capacity to strategically plan and invest in CPU facilities – such as bakery, butchery processing and deli production. Clearly cash flow should be considered here but an investment and change in process now may be vital for ongoing viability.
3. Follow the seasons
The globalisation of food production has increased food availability all year round, however seasonal foods are best eaten when they are naturally in harvest or ripening. Take a look at allmanhall's seasonality brochure, here.
Seasonal ingredients taste better and can be less expensive and more have the added benefit of being more sustainable, too.
It may be very tempting to park your foodservice operation's sustainability goals at present and focus on the pressing economic challenges in hand. But good food that doesn't cost the earth, in more ways than one, is achievable…
By ensuring transparency through readily accessible and easy to digest data, your team and customers can see the carbon impact assessment of menu choices, as easily as costs. And reducing red meat on the menu can reduce both costs and carbon impact. allmanhall have teamed with Foodsteps – click here to find out more.
4. Brand versus own label
The higher cost of branded label products is often influenced by the manufacturers' marketing costs, not necessarily the quality, flavour, or yield.
It is worth sampling own label products, especially if they are only being used back of house, decanted or as secondary ingredient to other dishes. A procurement provider such as allmanhall can help arrange this for you.
5. Drained weight of tinned goods
Tinned goods often state the net weight, which is the combined weight of the solid and the liquid contents. Measuring the drained weight of tinned items such as fruits, corn, chickpeas, and tuna will help establish their true cost and yield.
If consuming both the food and the liquid, such as tinned tomatoes, then this won't likely be an issue, but tinned tuna that is packed in brine or water results in the liquid being drained and discarded. For example, a 1880g tin of tuna when drained might hold 1320g of useable tuna, compared to a 1.7kg can (distributed by other wholesalers) having a drained useable weight of 1260g.
Tinned fruits can potentially be a convenient and sustainable option as they last much longer, there is less waste and the elimination of the need to wash and prepare the fruit means savings can be made on labour costs. However, see also number 2 and do consider carrying out cost-benefit analysis on this one!
6. Technology
Utilising a catering control platform to store recipes and calculate ingredient data to track and manage every penny of spend will enable caterers to forecast accurately and have tighter control over profit margins.
This technology supports nimble and flexible menu changes as pricing is uploaded live from suppliers. Also, ingredients can be substituted across all dishes very simply.
It can also facilitate better yield and waste management.
Software that can build and cost recipes quickly - whilst simultaneously analysing nutritional and allergen data, streamlining stock control and reducing administration - can save catering operations valuable time and resources. allmanhall can help with the system integration and training, as part of a fully supported food procurement solution.
allmanhall's award-winning approach is hands-on and practical, delivered by a team of experienced caterers and food procurement experts. They recently had a basket independently benchmarked against the marketplace (Quenelles), covering over 75% of multi-temp spend.
The results show an increase of over 10% in allmanhall's competitiveness against the marketplace to savings of over 25%!
Focusing solely on self-operators, despite comparing fixed pricing against others that have no hold window and some that are limited time special offers, allmanhall are still outperforming the sector by over 9%.
Now more than ever, a supportive and consultative food procurement specialist could be exactly what your foodservice operation needs. Why not contact the team at allmanhall to find out more?
