5 easy tips to reduce expenses in your restaurant

The competition in the restaurant industry is greater than ever, and the struggle for guests is hard. Therefore, it is important that you try to maximize the financial benefit of each and every guest you have in your restaurant.

If you want to maximize the financial benefit of the guest, it is obvious to either raise the prices or increase the additional sales. That’s absolutely true, but an often overlooked area is minimizing your expenses.

You can e.g. negotiate for better supplier agreements yourself or join a purchasing collaboration and take part in their advantageous supplier agreements. In this way, you can minimize the costs of your primary products and increase your profit. But there are other ways too.

Here you get 5 tips to how you can easily reduce the costs in your restaurant.

1. Only buy the necessary and aviod waste.

Many restaurateurs fear running out of a primary product and as a consequence have to report a dish sold out to the guest. Therefore, we often find that far too much is bought in, which eventually ends up being thrown away because it is no longer sellable.

By only buying in the things you are allocated, you can reduce your total primary product costs. And there can be big savings to be made at the same time that you reduce the restaurant’s food waste.

Quite impractically, food waste can be minimized by using the simple “FIFO” principle; first in, first out. The “FIFO” principle is about the oldest raw materials being used before the newest ones are used. It seems banal, but it is a good rule to remember in everyday life to minimize food waste and thus your raw material expenses.

If you bought too many primary products anyway, you can introduce ‘dish of the day’ or ‘soup of the day’. This way you can use the primary product that are in surplus, if your chefs are a bit creative, and at the same time profit from it. Here, of course, it must be considered whether it fits into your concept.

If you have produced too much food that cannot be used in a dish of the day or the soup of the day, it’s important to dispose of the excess in the best possible way. Here systems like Too Good To Go perfect, where you can sell the dishes that are left close to closing time at a reduced price. That’s far better than throwing the goods away. It’s a good thing – both for your wallet and the environment

2. Track your sales

Since we’re at it; food waste, then data is a key word when you want to reduce expenses in the restaurant and realize the full potential. By using a tool that can track your sales figures, you can see what sells, and what doesn’t. In your perspective, the dish or drink may fit perfectly with your concept, but if the guests don’t buy it, you end up throwing away raw materials, and then it’s actually just a waste of both your time and your money.

Therefor you should track your sales and remove the dishes and drinks, that don’t sell, from your menu and furthermore reduce your waste.

3. An effecient roster is worth it’s weight in gold

Good employees will love to provide a good service and get something to hand.

Therefore, it is in both your and the employees’ interests that there is something to do when they are at work. But at the same time there has to be the right balance so you’re not understaffed, and your employees aren’t exposed to unnecessary stress and your guests to unnecessary waiting time.

Creating a sharp roster with the right balance is a heavy, time-consuming task for many restaurateurs. And that is understandable because it’s easier said than done.

Fortunately, there is help to get, and you can advantageously consider using an online shift planning system that intelligently lays out the shift schedule for you in a split second.

It will save you so much time and frustrations, so the system is quickly worth the money.

Among the leading systems on the market arePlanday, SameSystem and Workfeed.

4. Give the expenses a second check

It could be a good idea to check your expenses. As an owner of a restaurant you’re probably very busy with a lot of things on your mind, and maybe economy isn’t the funniest thing to do.

But there are often hidden postings that benefit from a six-monthly check. Look at the budget with your critical eyes, and you may discover expenses that might have been necessary a year ago, but which are no longer relevant. Or maybe you can get a better price elsewhere e.g. by restructuring the loan, insurance or supplier agreement.

5. Register in a purchasing organization

We mentioned it in the beginning, but we think it deserves it’s own section. Unnecessarily expensive supply agreements is actually something we see at those of our customers who have 1, 2, or 3 restaurants.

It’s the small restaurateur’s lot to not be able to negotiate as good of a deal as the big restaurateurs, due to the relativily small amount of goods they buy.

In this way they are already behind on points and will either have to sell their dishes for a higher price or accept a lower markup, but no matter what their competitiveness is degraded.

In this way there is a big benefit to be gained by entering into a purchasing organization. In a purchasing organization, restaurateurs come together under the same organization, which negotiates some very advantageous supplier agreements on behalf of its members.

The reason why this can be done is that negotiations are now based on the purchases of many restaurateurs instead of just one or a few. In this way, many restaurateurs will be able to take part in supplier agreements that they would not be able to come close to on their own.

We can recommend Systemkøb, where it’s a 100% free to be a member of.