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Johan Holmes is the F&B manager for a
hotel that spends 1 million pound sterling a year on its fresh meat fish
fruit . Holmes normally asks a number of new suppliers to quote
for his range of commodities and these are checked against the
incumbent suppliers prices. Almost always the latter seem more
competitive. However over the past year Holmes has become aware
that although no significant changes have occurred in the
business mix gross profit is slipping month-on-month. He has
introduced tighter wastage monitoring but this has only proved
that wastage was not an issue. Revenue is tightly controlled and
Holmes ensures that the price of product is regularly checked. It
always seems to be correct. Clearly there is a problem But
Holmes is at a loss to identify it.
What the
expert advises
The key factor that Holmes should now
consider in detail is the yield that he is obtaining form the
fresh product he is buying-in other words the amount of product
he actually has to plate as opposed to the weight of product he
receives and for which he pays. Virtually all meat and fish as
wall as a good deal of fruit and vegetables have yield factors
that can affect the actual cost price by as much as 80% and
since these items usually make up about 70% of the total food
purchases made in Holmes’s case he could have the potential to
vary costs by some 350,000 pound sterling, a year.
An interesting example of a specific
product is turkey. At this time of year a frequently asked
question is How much is turkey going to be a pound this
Christmas? Unfortunately a blanket answer to this is
meaningless: there are many different ways to buy turkey each
with a different yield factor and this should influence the
published price. What may at first appear to be more expensive
may in fact be cheaper. Another example is Salmon. If Holmes buy
one 4kg salmon it might cost him16pound sterling. If this comes complete
with head and bones and packed in ice it could weigh in at 4 kg
in the delivery bay but after unpacking and filleting he is
likely to be left no more than a 50% yield. The remaining 2kg of
salmon may then be cut into 10 portions costing him 1.60pound
sterling each.
If he could improve the yield factor to just 65% he would have
2.6kg of salmon which would make 13 fillets costing him 1.23
pound sterling each or 23% less. The quotation obtained from the salmon
supplier should be for the useable part of the fish. It does not
make sense for managers to accept a price of say 4 pound
sterling per kg
unfilleted, and then ask for it to be filleted, skinned, trimmed
and cut into portions.
Significant
savings
Prepared fruit is another example. Yield
check can identify significant savings for a client as well as
the potential to upgrade the quality of his fruit simply by
better managing the yield on fruit and comparing the drained
weight provided by one supplier with another. The principle is
simple Commercial kitchens should demand that they pay for only what they can
use Yet it is surprising how many kitchens so not even use or
posses weighing scales at the back door to check the weight of
produce received. In some other cases where scales are
used the weighing process is carried out by untrained staff who
do not know what to look for or how to record their findings.
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