Very Low Food Cost??? Need Help???

[adamnn28]

I am an Executive Chef In a Mid-Size Hotel In Central Florida. My operation has two full service restaurants, and meeting space for up to 350 people. My banquets Dept. has a 20.9% food cost for February.
The food cost is generally around 29% every month. Does this seem odd, or is it just the fruits of a job well done? please give me your feedback, in whatever form or fashion [/color]

[justwingit]

Well it could be one of three things:

1, you did real good, well done!!

2, You reduced your inventory and purchases (Do your purchases seem lower than usually for the amount of business you did?)

3, you screwed up and got away with it!! no seriously, do you have a missing invoice or two? or do the revenue numbers look odd?

I always have a "gut" feeling whether or not I have done a good job each month, and either way see how next month is before you congrat yourself, just incase you really did screw up!

Tom

[Max_Xavier]

If #1, #2 or #3 is not the case then there may be an error in your inventory like 100 cans of oyster sauce rather than 10 cans.

[Derek Cooks]

Yes, Adam, if your costs are down 10% - that's a 33% drop. That's HUGE. I'd be hunting for it. Unless you did 30% fewer/smaller/cheaper banquets.

Maybe an employee broght back all the food they'd been carrying out for a few years?

[BistroOwner1]

Yep, somethings not quite right there.

It certainly sounds like an inventory glitch or missing invoice. Are you using an inventory program that calculates the figures for you? or are you doing it by hand. If its auto - then the first thing I would do is go back and make sure you entered each thing correctly. Did you put 375 "Cases" where it should have been "pounds" of Filet Mignon?

Is there a $5000 food invoice that slid behind the desk by accident?

Did you count the walk-in freezer twice?

Did someone new do the inventory count?

In a perfect world, it would be great to walk away from that number and assume it's right, but my guess is that if you do, you will find yourself running a 50% food cost next month. It will find you if you dont find it!

[jonesg]

Banquets can be lower food cost, done right.
Its the efficiency of scale.

Done wrong the volume causes higher cost by multitudes.

And often the banquet food cost is balanced out by higher logistics cost anyway.

[RedBeansNRice]

Ahh the negatives. Banquets can vary, of course.

As for as food costs, there could be a whole lot of things you did right rather then wrong this time around. You need to go through your staff, and find out what possibly they did different in a polite way.

One it could lower your bottom line, but possibly be offending guests, or two

your yield could have increased for a variable of reasons. Like I said or didn't say, you should go through what happened last month find out what you did better or worse, and find out if the better truly is better, and if it's worse well correct it and get it back in line. Plus who knows, possibly it was in purchasing. That can make all the difference on it's own. Do you do the purchasing or do you have a different department for that?

Plus what FC are you expected to run? The hotels I have worked at considerd what they were doing to be more of guest services then trying to pull a real profit. That being said, when I ran food costs, my costs were far lower then anyone in here would believe, so I do not dare posting. Anything is possible. I think it's just extremely necessary to understand what brought you here, and if it's benefitting customers or taking them away you need to either correct it, or encourage for future benefits. I have always seen why it is important to make more money, but I have also always valued the current customer base as being quintesential, and if I didn't spell that right as being KING. If there are turns you can take that wil help you, take them, if not, get back on course.

[bighead]

How long have you been the Executive Chef there?

Nice job in a month when everything is costing more.

Hotel F&B cost of sales can very for a number of reasons.

If you have been there for at least six months and have really not changed much in way of menus, inventory or purchasing, I'll bet the low food cost is due to menu mix.

I'm thinking your hotel had more low cost functions like meetings with coffee breaks, continental breakfasts, deli buffets, receptions, and chicken, meals than usual from companies that paid full price. Also, if the hotel is full of these meeting attendees and they are being fed in banquets, I'll guess your higher food cost restaurants were slower than usual.
The bar was probably busy though.

[jonesg]

A monthly PL sheet is just a blip, a 12 month report shows a curve when all the blips smooth out.

Any month can appear low if inventory from the previous month is finally put to use.

[chefa1a]

well all depends if you recycle leftover banquet food into the restaurant

paid for food from the banquets can mean extra revenue for the restaurant and a lower percent on the monthly spreadsheet

i had a great month in February something about the 4 weeks instead of the 4.2

[sohail]

99% of the time, when our food cost was incredibly low, at least to us a 9% or 10% differance would have been a lot, it was a counting issue during inventory, and or it was an input error.

We always knew though the next month, when the normal expected cost would be up high, so it balanced out, but as i said, it was almost always either counts or input erorr.

When we took over, the food cost was 46.5% and we lowered it to 32%, which is not shabby (not great either) for an operation that was open 7 days a week from 5:45 am until 9 pm. Let us know what your cost is next month, it should prove interesting. Also, not to sound like a copy cat of info, but it may have been due to excellent waste control to the point where your waste at the end of the night became very controled and low, very good sales versus purchases, and proper useage of leftover, i know those helped our cost drop drastically.

[courten]

That sounds reasonable. My establishment's banquet facilities has similar numbers. Anything left over (wholesome) is consumed by our restaurant, so very little waste. Good volume plus high per cover plate fees add up to a healthy food cost and good profit margins.

[chfbdawg]

did you 86 someone who might have been taking home a striploin or a tenderloin with them on a regular basis? Sad but sometimes true.