Sysco Albany Culinary Business Reviews A PARTNERSHIP of value added services to help your business succeed
TAKE A LOOK INSIDE
TO SEE WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM OUR BUSINESS REVIEW PROGRAM
INTRODUCTION
WHAT EXACTLY IS A CBR
Picture your foodservice company partnering in your business One of our most popular and beneficial programs for our customers is the Business Review. It can provide just the shot of adrenaline your business needs to flourish in this changing economy. Working with Sysco is like having your own personal consultant, but at no extra charge. Our goal is to build a strong working relationship with our customers that allows us to help them compete more effectively in the marketplace.
Who should attend a Business Review? The decision makers most responsible for the profitability of your business.
What is a Business Review about? It’s your opportunity to come to our facility for a unique experience like no other in the industry. In your personalized Business Review we will discuss the services, products, savings, and support important to your business. Together, we will identify issues you may be having, from training to products to menu development and design - we can help. Your Culinary Visit will allow you to look at new items, from packaging to plate presentation. Our culinary team rolls out the red carpet to show you new ideas that will boost your menu and sales.
Can a Business Review help me with sales and profits? Here are some examples of what you can expect......
LETS TAKE A LOOK INSIDE
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Sysco Albany Business Review Program
MENU DESIGN
AND ENGINEERING
As your #1 marketing tool, keeping your menu fresh is essential to increasing profitability. Consider the following: • The average customer will only look at your menu for about 109 seconds. This makes the amount of time your menu has to make an impact very important. • Re-designing your menu allows you the opportunity to make minor changes from time to time, rather than major changes all at once. Incremental price increases on specific items, to increase your profitability.
Give your customers a passport to global flavors! Enticing customers with global flavors is an excellent way to drive traffic & higher check averages. Research shows 64% of customers seek unique flavors on menus and are willing to pay more for items that offer premium ingredients with global flavors. With a whole world of big, bold flavors out there, your menu can serve as a culinary travel guide for your guests. International sauces are always a big hit, given their versatility and popularity.
EVALUATION EXAMPLE
• Re-positioning profitable items can have a huge impact • Remove non-performing items • Add new items to keep your menu fresh
Visit us at: www.SyscoALB.com
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The Burger Bar YOUR MENU IS YOUR BIGGEST FORsteps YOUR Build MARKETING Your BurgerTOOL in three start with one of hand crafted burgers served on a butter toasted challah roll. RESTAURANT.
Add fries 0.00,
Step 1
served with our house kettle chips. Onion Rings 0.00 Sweet Potato Fries 0.00
Garden Salad 0.00
The best compliment is to have a customer tell you,” Your menu looks like a franchise”
choose your burger
half pound burger our signature juicy half pound Certified Angus Beef burger grilled to your desired doneness. Only 8% of all angus beef raised in the US will be graded as Certified Angus 0.00 american kobe burger Wagyu Steak Burgers are world’s finest hamburgers absolutely perfect in flavor, color and texture. Guaranteed to be the best “Kobe Steak Burgers” of your life. American Kobe beef is raised in the northwest with the same philosophy as the Japanese Waygu breed. This improved marbling increases the eating quality of the meat; enhancing the flavor, HIGHLIGHT YOUR tenderness and juiciness of the meat. 00.00 the quarter pounder SIGNATURE ITEMS
served on a toasted bun 0.00
turkey burger our juicy campfire turkey burger. 0.00
veggie burger delicious quarter pound veggie burger. With beans, carrots, and edamame 0.00
crab cake burger sweet and flaky maryland style crab cake, fried golden brown 0.00
mouth Step 2watering
HAVE YOUR PRICING FOLLOW Barbeque, Buffalo, Mayonnaise, Russian, Horseradish, Cajun Rubbed, DESCRIPTION the sauce:
Teriyaki Glaze, Marinara Sauce, Ranch, Honey Mustard .00ea
ring
Step 3
the toppings:
Regular American, Swiss, Cheddar, Provolone, Lettuce & Tomato, Raw Onion, Carmalized Onion, Pickles, Fried Peppers .00 ea Speciality Toppings Bacon, Onion Ring, Bleu Cheese, Jalapenos, Sauteed Mushrooms, Fried Egg, Guacamole Black Forest Ham, Pepperoni 0.00ea
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Sysco Albany Business Review Program
TEST KITCHEN VISIT
YOUR BOTTOM LINE IS OUR GOAL
In our test kitchen you will have an opportunity to take a look at • New profitable menu items. Talk about food trends and cutting edge ideas that are specific for your operation. Sysco Albany has access to several resources that professional consulting firms use. We use a fact based research and consulting firm with over 40 years of experience. They provide the culinary team with the inspiration needed for your specific menu needs. The more we work with you at our office, the better understanding our team has for your needs. We never want to waste your time or provide you with items that are not applicable to your business.
Here is an example of 11 trends for 2011 Restaurant operators can’t be certain about much for 2011, as recent improvements in guest traffic, samestore sales and hiring are far from guaranteed to continue. About the only thing they can expect as they hope for traction in the economy’s wobbly recovery is that the industry will continue to look different than it does today. In forecasting what changes may lie ahead, Chicago-based market research firm Technomic Inc. identified 11 restaurant industry trends for next year. 1. Action in adult beverages Technomic predicts that as optimism grows in 2011, consumers will want to celebrate with some higherend alcoholic drinks. As such, retro cocktails and high-end spirits may get more play at fine-dining and independent establishments, craft beers could gain in popularity against their mass-market counterparts, and fast-casual concepts could turn to alcohol as a way to differentiate themselves. Casual-dining chain Ruby Tuesday already has positioned itself to get ahead of this trend, offering $5 premium well cocktails and craft beers as part of an expanded beverage program that debuted with a rebranding. There also are several smart-phone apps like Find Craft Beer and Happy Houred that will list nearby restaurants offering specialty micro brews.
2. Beyond bricks and mortar Food trucks are poised to move beyond New York and Los Angeles into more U.S. cities. Not only will gourmet food trucks proliferate, Technomic said, but traditional restaurants also will begin using the tactic as a way to extend their brands into new areas or add revenue streams like catering. Chains like Qdoba, Sizzler, Dairy Queen and Gold Star Chili already have done this. Regulatory agencies in cities with a new food truck presence will be scrambling to keep up. 3. Farmers as celebrities The era of the celebrity chef may soon give way to that of the star farmer. Look for more attention to be paid to producers and suppliers on menus across the nation as a growing back-to-the source mentality takes hold in the industry, Technomic said. Farmers and producers may soon be high-profile spokesmen for restaurants and host more special events and dinners. At the chain level, Chipotle Mexican Grill and Domino’s Pizza have made their sourcing integral to their marketing — Chipotle with its “Food With Integrity” campaign and Domino’s with its commercials taking place on a dairy farm. 4. Social media & technology: Look for more restaurants to gain a competitive edge with new technologies and applications, including kiosks for ordering and displaying nutritional information, iPads containing wine lists, and hand-held devices for tableside payments. Widespread adoption of location-based social media has a lot of room for scale, indicated not only by mega chains Starbucks and McDonald’s piloting uses for Facebook Deals, but also by CKE Restaurants’ development of its own location-based mobile app, Happy Star Rewards. 5. Korean and beyond “The Korean Taco — an only-in-America synthesis of Korean-style fillings and a Mexican format — signals the rise of Korean barbecue and Korean food in general”, Technomic writes. While that item made famous Visit us at: www.SyscoALB.com 5.
TEST KITCHEN VISIT 11 TRENDS FOR 2012 CONTINUED
by Los Angeles food truck Kogi Korean BBQ-to-Go has the potential to touch off a proliferation of street foods and small plates across the industry, other restaurant dishes may incorporate traditional Korean flavors like kimchee and short rib. 6. Frugality fatigue Consumers who are able to treat themselves again in 2011 will do so — meaning that restaurants with a few indulgent menu items or experiences could see an uptick in orders of high-margin and high-price-point dishes. This could spell opportunity not only for casualdining chains to entice diners with more premium dishes like the Flavor-Loaded Steaks at Applebee’s, but also for higher-end chains like Fleming’s Prime and Morton’s to attract new customers with their bar menus, as they’ve done throughout the downturn. Technomic also predicted that more gastropubs would pop up next year. 7. How low can you go? On the other hand, customers will continue to demand everyday value when dining out, Technomic said. As part of any balanced-menu strategy, restaurants should have permanent value fixtures available, not just limited-time offers. In its most recent earnings call, quick-service chain Wendy’s said its value-driven LTOs did well with marketing support, but dropped off when advertising was pulled back, which necessitated the reformulation and promotion of its latest everyday-value lineup, “My 99,” with seven items for 99 cents. 8. Carefully calibrated brand action More restaurant concepts will update brand positioning through remodels and new formats, Technomic predicted. Many chains have begun on that front already, beginning with the debut this month of a fastcasual café variant for family dining brand Denny’s, which also foresees future growth in nontraditional locations on college campuses. In a move to bolster carry-out sales, Bob Evans has added a “Taste of the Farm” grab-and-go area to five of its locations, and plans to remodel 30 to 35 more units over the next six months. McDonald’s also plans
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Sysco Albany Business Review Program
to remodel hundreds of units this year and next, continuing its image update featuring highlights like the McCafe beverage lineup and free Wi-Fi in its stores. 9. Back to our roots Consumers will continue to turn to comfort foods when dining out, Technomic projected, creating demand for traditional Southern foods, retro Italian favorites like meatballs, or gourmet updates to nostalgic favorites like doughnuts and popsicles. There also could be more opportunities for family-style service and family-size portions, like the fare offered at Italian dinner house Buca di Beppo, especially if more families have reasons to celebrate in the new year. 10. New competition from C-stores “Retailers have been encroaching on restaurant turf for some time,”Technomic said, “but now the hottest action is among convenience store operators upgrading their foodservice, where margins are 40 percent to 60 percent instead of the 5 percent typical for gas.” Restaurants can prevent customer defection to C-stores by focusing on their differentiated menu items, ambience and service, Technomic said, while others can fight back by taking some of their signatures into grocery stores, as Starbucks, California Pizza Kitchen and P.F. Chang’s have. 11. Healthful versus indulgent The balance that restaurants usually strike between healthful and not-so-healthful food items could get complicated in 2011 when many menu-labeling requirements take effect. One possible trend emerging from the new regulations could be an upswing in limited-time offers, which are exempt from nutritional data-disclosure requirements. Technomic also predicted more moves to reformulate entire menus with an eye toward health, like Taco Bell’s recent test of a lower-sodium menu, and more menus advertised as under a certain number of calories, similar to Applebee’s under-550-calorie lineup.
BUSINESS REVIEW PROCESS
A LOOK AT PROFITABILITY
Here is where you can take a snap shot of your previous year’s performance. Our team will develop a plan of attack to make the following year more profitable. Here are a few examples • Staff Training (Service That Sells) The most important responsibility in any restaurant is providing consistent food and service. Our culinary specialists can assist you in recipe building, knife training and sanitation. Front of the house training is just as important as the preparing of the food.
• Kitchen Consulting During a business review food cost is an important topic. Let us be another set of eyes for your operation. We can assist with any problems you have with: waste, purchasing, over prepping, sanitation and portioning. All are areas that effect your food cost.
HERE ARE 10 QUICK WAYS TO REDUCE YOUR FOOD COST: 1.Engineer your menu Not knowing the order in which your customers read your menu can cost you money. High margin items in the correct places on your menu will boost your bottom line time and time again. 2.Develop a Standard Item List How often have you wandered into the storerooms to find the most random selection of products that don’t appear to be part of any recipe for current menu items? These items are costing you money. By developing a standard item list with your Chef based purely on the menu items, you are avoiding extra “nice to have” purchases which take up space and profits.
With Service That Sells our trainer can train your staff/trainer to sell rather than take orders. It is very important to have your FOTH staff aware of the high profit grossing items from your menu and also how to increase check average.
3.Develop a Master Price List Many of your ingredients will vary in price depending on market availability, such as certain meats and vegetables, however you will still be able to develop a Master Price List against which the chef can check delivery prices. This will be especially useful if you have locked suppliers into certain pricing for a period of time. Any overcharging can then be corrected at the receiving door before the invoice is paid. 4.Conduct Regular Stocktakes/Inventories If your freezers and stores are like any that I’ve come across in the past, then you most likely have a considerable amount of “dead” stock on hand. This may have come from incorrect deliveries, menu changes, over ordering, or any other number of reasons, but if you conduct regular inventories, you will be able to identify Visit us at: www.SyscoALB.com 7.
BUSINESS REVIEW PROCESS these items and find ways to use the stock that is still in good condition and free up space in your stores by getting rid of stock no longer usable. Remember, finding ways to create menu items without purchasing additional stock lowers your food cost every time. 5.Communicate with your staff Letting your staff know what items cost highlights to them the value of wastage and shows them that you are on top of food cost control. Also keep wait staff informed of specials added to the menu so that they can push these items to customers. 6.Know your recipes inside out If you don’t know the recipe’s cost of every item on your menu, you might as well forget about worrying about any other point on this list, because you won’t have a food business for long. Every menu item needs a recipe card and every recipe card needs to be stored in a hardback folder in the kitchen so that all cooks and chefs work from the same recipe. The recipe cards need to be adjusted with ingredient price fluctuations. Do this before doing anything else to reduce your food cost because it might highlight inefficient items that can be ditched from your menu immediately. Menu Price Plate Cost Food Coast % Profit
Item name Price Amount Unit Cost
7.Check deliveries religiously It never fails to amaze me, that even in the busiest of restaurants, no-one is scheduled to receive deliveries. Instead, whatever cook or cleaner is on duty assumes the task of signing for the delivery, often without checking the quantity or quality of the items delivered. Assign a member of staff who isn’t going to be busy with other tasks at delivery time and you may avoid short deliveries, incorrect deliveries, spoiled deliveries and over charging. Worth the effort? 8.Get and Read your Reports frequently It’s all very well implementing these suggestions, but if you can’t see their impact on the bottom line, then they are truly in vain. Every operation is different and every situation needs specific solutions, so you need to know on a weekly basis what your food cost percentage is. You then need to compare this to your labor cost percentage and establish if you are within budget projections. Information is power and the more information you have as to the effect your changes are having, the easier it will be to plug the leaks when they occur. 9.Lower your stock levels By lowering your stock levels, you are doing three things: You are reducing the likelihood of spoilage from overstocking and expiration, You are reducing the amount of cash tied up in stock in hand and you are forcing staff to be more efficient with available stocks and not be dependent on extra stock should the dish “not turn out right…”. 10.Get out of the office Perhaps the most important of all the suggestions. Too many managers lock themselves in the office during busy periods analyzing figures when they should be out on the floor observing what has led to the poor results in the first place. In the US, regional managers from retailer Wal-Mart regularly ring the offices of store managers and if they pick up, they are asked what the hell they are doing in the office picking up the phone when they should be out on the floor managing the business!
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Sysco Albany Business Review Program
BUSINESS REVIEW PROCESS
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K WAY TO HERE ARE 10 QUIC BOR COST: A L R U O Y E C U D E R ps from Proven successful ti als industry profession 1. Institute bonuses. Some employees seem to worship absenteeism. To them, Jimmy Hoffa is a role model. To reduce your noshows, offer servers and cooks a free pay day or two movie tickets if they’re not sick or tardy for a 30- or 60day period. Reward the behavior you expect. 2. Share the numbers. Teach all of your employees the math of controlling monthly labor costs and show them the importance of clocking in and out promptly. Then offer them a team bonus if they collectively bring labor costs in their department below a targeted percentage. Perhaps share 1 percent of the saved labor costs with the staff, incrementally based on the number of hours each employee worked during the costs-cutting period. 3. Pair up servers in a buddy system. Covering shifts can be a considerable labor drain in terms of dollars lost and headaches generated. A buddy system can plug that drain. Have two servers agree to be each other’s shift cover buddy over the next 30 days or next six months. When a server is unable to make a scheduled shift, he telephones his shift buddy first before he telephones the manager. 4. Discuss your labor goal’s progress daily. Set specific monthly labor targets and break them down into the daily goal you must be managing. Highlight it every day by reviewing “how we’re doing” labor wise at a pre-shift team meeting. Specifically recite the targeted clock-out times for each employee. What you reinforce is what you get.
5. Always Answer the question “What’s in it for me?” To get employees past a problem, involve them in the solution. At your next employee meeting have your service and kitchen staff break into groups and list 10 ways they could collectively keep labor costs down. For the best idea, offer a bounty of 1 percent of the total savings over a year. Give them $15 cash immediately as a down payment on the reward. That technique results in a flurry of regularly generated cost saving ideas, not only for labor but also for food and beverage costs. 6. Reward your student workers for the best grade point average. For instance, offer a bonus of 10 cents per hour for every student who maintains a GPA between 2.5 and 3.0 during that high-school or college semester. Offer a 25-cent-per-hour difference to the employee at the end of the semester and let the school and your community newspaper know about it. While this idea may not necessarily reduce labor costs, it fosters collaboration, recruits other students, builds loyalty and reduces turnover. 7. Reward longevity with bonuses. Michael Fuller at Chevy’s Restaurants tells me that the chain rewards kitchen employees with $100 for one year of service, $200 for two years and so on. The check is accompanied with a bronze, silver, gold or platinum pin for each year of service and public recognition from the newspapers and their colleagues. 8. Consider a deferred bonus plan for managers. How do you keep your best supervisors from leaving to work for another restaurant? Set a specific annual sales goal for your restaurant. Offer managers a 2 percent bonus in addition to their regular incentive for every year that the store’s sales exceed agreed-upon targeted goals, but the 2-percent bonus is payable only after the manager has stayed with your operation for three years. This system is sometimes jokingly referred to as “silver handcuffs.” Visit us at: www.SyscoALB.com 9.
BUSINESS REVIEW PROCESS
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9. Turn over applicants, not employees. The best way to control your labor costs effectively is to hire the right person to begin with. When you’re checking references, be sure to ask about the absenteeism record. Use mystery applicants to inspect your hiring process and evaluate your manager’s interviewing skills.
10. Recognize contributions. When cooks, servers or managers periodically put in long hours or lots of doubles, acknowledge what they have done with a thank-you card or gift certificate. Don’t forget their spouses or family. Send a thank-you card, flowers or a gift certificate to the people at home who emotionally support your hard-working staff. I remember a cook once saying, “Nobody appreciates what I do until I don’t do it.”
• Marketing Needs We can brainstorm some internal marketing trends and promotions to help fill your seats. We also have companies available through the iCARE program that will develop a complete marketing campaign for you and your budget at our corporate discounted rate.
NATIONAL ICARE PARTNERS: Constant Contact 1-866-237-4280 sysco.constantcontact.com The leading provider of email marketing for small businesses, we know restaurants – and what you need to succeed. Fishbowl Marketing 1-800-836-2818 www.fishbowl.com Partner with the leader in permission-based email marketing to fill more seats and turn more tables. Focus Marketing 1-800-380-6348 www.menufocus.com Analyze the profitability of your menu offerings and re-design your menu to maximize sales and profits. Google Local Business Center www.google.com/lbc/syscoicare Get found on Google.com and Google Maps with Local Business Center, for Free!
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Sysco Albany Business Review Program
ITEX 1-800-277-9722 www.itex.com/icare The ITEX Membership Trading Community sm supports restaurant operators by bringing new business to our clients. Moving Targets 1-800-926-2451, ext. 299 www.movingtargets.com Offers three low-cost direct marketing services proven nationwide to influence people to visit you and spend money. Ordereze.com 1-631-271-3470 www.ordereze.com Provides you with a Web site that is proven to fill the cash register, and is easy and painless system to operate. Yellow Book USA 1-800-YB-YELLOW www.yellowbook.com Drive patrons to your restaurant through yellow pages advertising and listing services, including menu placement.
Sysco iCARE WWW.SYSCOICARE.COM
website design and development What are OrderEze Websites! Websites powered by OrderEze are attractive, data driven, and easy to use. Our websites are user friendly, and require no understanding of web programming or html; if you can type on a computer, you can customize your website! You can now show EVERYTHING you sell conveniently to the world, including daily specials, upcoming events, new promotions and more. The possibilities of increased revenue are endless! * Increase your customer reach * Direct Email Marketing * Low Cost Online Ordering * Social Media Marketing Coming Soon! * Mobile Marketing Coming Soon! Visit our web site and view the video for further information or contact your Sysco Marketing Associate http://www.ordereze.com/Home.aspx
Visit us at: www.SyscoALB.com
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We reserve the right to correct typographical errors Sysco Albany (800) 342-9811 * (518) 877-3200