SAFE HAVEN

A Chef’s Guide to Commercial Kitchen Security

By Howard Riell

You can’t manage what you can’t see, the saying goes, and thieves hide their handiwork. That is what makes managing a restaurant’s internal security so dicey.

From deliveries and inventory to pilferage of food or equipment and bar operations, operators need a sharp eye — as well as policies and procedures to discourage even the most dedicated thief (as unfortunate as it sounds to say that).

Chef John Franke, founder and president of Franke Culinary Consulting, LLC, in Lantana, Texas, says he dealt with security/theft issues earlier in his career as a corporate chef.

“My focus was mainly working with positioning cameras and how to manage gracefully through those cameras, implementing end-of-the-night protein counts to ensure things aren't walking out of the building,” he recalls. Another goal was building “a culture that lends itself to everyone working together as one team with one dream to ensure buy-in — and working together to hold each other accountable.”

From his perspective, Chef Franke says kitchen operations need three things to operate well: people, product and systems. “The greatest security threat within those three would be the people,” he says. “Product doesn't steal itself. However, the wrong systems in place could in fact play a factor in theft.”

Dealing With Delivery

Delivery drivers and all the various personnel walking in and out of the kitchen could certainly be a factor, Chef Franke says, “but primarily in my experience it would be employees. Sometimes it is simple naivete of the employee as to what they can and cannot eat, but other times it’s outright flagrant theft of various foods, beverages or even equipment.”

Deliveries create what Chef Tracy Zimmermann , assistant professor of hospitality management at New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn, New York, calls “a large issue if there is not a standard person receiving with the time and knowledge to check the product.” Product needs to be tracked from ordering and through receiving to utilization. “If not tracked, pilferage or waste could be a great issue,” she says.

Product has to be received and accurately documented as inventory, with correct cost and retail markups assigned. “If a product is not counted or recorded correctly, it causes an error in accounting and potential loss on paper,” says Chris McGoey, owner of McGoey Security Consulting in Jonesborough, Tennessee. “The product can be shorted by dishonest delivery drivers but reported as delivered, causing an instant loss on the books.” Ingredients and supplies can be stolen by dishonest employees at the point of delivery or daily, causing a loss of inventory and increasing the cost of goods.

Inventory Management

When it comes to inventory, Chef Franke recalls seeing people pad records to ensure they hit food cost, “which in turn is theft as they are getting bonuses on a number that isn’t reality.” The issue, he feels, is that “you eventually run out of margin on that, and it will blow up on you.” One solution is to have various people at different levels do the counting and others the inputting. “Never give the final food-cost number directly after the counts are inputted, otherwise that system could be fraught with problems,” he says.

Other areas require just as much scrutiny. The bar, according to Chef Franke, is “a whole other beast, and the opportunities to steal are everywhere.” Ingredients can be purposely miscounted, drinks can be “neglected to be rung in. Friends of the bartenders will at times get free drinks, and overpouring/waste making things wrong” can prove a daily struggle.

Solid systems must be in place. For instance, insist that all drinks be rung in before making and/ or serving them. Cameras should be positioned correctly and in working order. Nightly inventory counts should be matched with the POS sales and spill sheets. Instilling consistency in portioning is also critical.

As for theft in waste removal, Chef Franke says, “If a person that pulls the dumpsters has access to the back dock and you have things stored there, that is just asking for opportunities to steal.”

POLICY, PROCEDURE, TRAINING

The keys to strong internal restaurant security are policy, procedure and training, says J. Patrick Murphy, president of LPT Security Consulting in Tomball, Texas. “Every restaurant faces variations on a theme regarding shrinkage, so it is incumbent on the company to first create an overall operations policy.”

Hiring factors into this. “Checking references of past employment, giving new employees a full understanding of the strategies in place to avoid theft, asking them situational questions like, ‘What would you do if you saw a fellow employee steal?’ and talking to them about the culture and feeling them out as to whether or not they fit in will all help,” Chef Franke says.

The question “is really about restaurant profit and loss prevention, not security or safety,” McGoey says. “The loss-prevention formula is simple to define and express. The day-to-day application of strict lossprevention policies is a challenge.”

Everything in operations needs a written policy to ensure consistency, Murphy says. “The theory, obviously, is that over time, weaknesses in operations have been discovered and policies changed to meet the weakness.”

“What is the company’s policy on the receipt of anything?” he asks. “Who can check it in? What paperwork must be kept? How are delivered goods’ shortages accounted for? This is all paperwork, but absolute operating procedures reduce the opportunity for theft and error. Operators have to manage people and processes, nothing more. Without a written framework, it is a guaranteed fail.”

Restaurants typically are watchful of their cost of goods, Murphy says. “That is a controllable expense. But is that dollar amount being compared to revenue to see if sales are as forecasted while the cost of goods continues to rise? You may not catch it in one month, but it’s an Excel spreadsheet put to a graph. At least management is getting a view from 25,000 feet, and they can filter it down by line item. It’s a deep dive into the paperwork and not about cameras. Cameras are great when someone slips on a greasy floor and you have video. But detecting a theft on video? Not so much.”

Says Chef Franke, “People are people, and it's our responsibility as leaders to set the systems in place, hire the right people, create a culture of togetherness and buy-in and trust those under us while still verifying their activities. Theft will happen, but with the proper culture and team building, much of it can be alleviated.”