Food costing and kitchen systems
Plate costing, menu engineering and daily controls that bring cost of sales down and keep it there.
The problem
When food cost creeps up, the cause is usually a mix of old recipes, unchecked purchasing and prices that have not kept up with suppliers. Nobody sees it until the month-end figures arrive.
Brian McCune puts the controls in place to see it daily: costed recipes, purchasing logs, sales analysis and menu engineering. They run on The Food Biz's own kitchen software, which you keep when the job is done.
What we do
- Plate costing and standard recipe costing
- Menu engineering appraisal
- Daily purchasing log control
- Daily sales analysis
- Supplier price comparison
- Yield calculation and allergen matrices
- Daily, weekly and monthly food cost reporting
Who it's for
Any kitchen where food cost is too high or nobody is sure what it is: restaurants, hotels, estate restaurants, cafés and caterers.
The proof
- 54% → 38%Restaurant turnaround, Cape Town wine estateFood cost of sales brought to its 38% budget target within two months, through price and menu review, rebuilt standard recipes and new daily controls.
Straight answers
How quickly can food costs come down?
Often within weeks. On a recent wine estate turnaround, food cost of sales fell from 54% to 38% in two months.
Do we keep the costing system?
Yes. Clients keep the software after the job ends, so the improvement holds instead of drifting back within a season.
What is menu engineering?
Menu engineering ranks each dish by how popular and how profitable it is, so you know which to promote, reprice, rework or drop.