Notes on Purchasing and Receiving

Keeping extensive notes on your business day may seem tedious, but it will help your food costs and planning. Takes notes of what the day was like, what the weather was like, etc. Then, if you want to know if your restaurant is going to be insanely crowded a sunny sunday after the fourth of july, you simply have to look it up. It's not an exact science as people have frustratingly proved time and again to be irrational, unpredictable creatures. Other, larger factors may be at play as well. For instance, at my new job, we researched the aforementioned sunny Sunday and the year before had done ten times the business as we were doing that day. This because of the economic slump when people are loathe to pay astronomical prices for luxury cooking items.

Key terms: par stock - what you need to have on hand to make it from one delivery to the next with minimal overstock. Overstock of perishable items means possible spoilage, overstock of non-perishable means money lost due to excessive storage space being used. Use aforementioned notes to forecast par stock needs.

AP weight -(As Purchased) the weight of an item before trimming
EP weight - (Edible Portion) the weight of an item after all trimming and prep is finished
AP/EP - dividing the EP by the AP gives you a percentage yeild. Always purchase according to what you need as EP. So, say you need 6 pounds of carrots EP and have an AP/EP of 80% then you have to buy 7.5 pounds of carrots AP.

Portion control - there are a few reasons to be a stickler about portion control.
1. Consistency - everyone cook's idea of what a portion should be is going to be different. say you have mashed potatoes and gravy and one night it has a scant dollop of gravy on a heap of potatoes and the next it looks like gravy soup with potato garnish. The customer isn't going to be happy and won't return. Give your cooks a standard size serving ladel to serve it with and it will be consistent.
2. Food costs - How can you estimate your par stock or food costs without having a set cost for each menu item? Also, if an item is getting too expensive (food cost fluctuates with the seasons) it may behoove you to adjust the portion size.
3. Food costs II - If a certain menu item consistently comes back half eaten, make the portion smaller.