Yes, you should help your food reps sell you more products! Here's how: It’s obvious that price AND value are very important…Yes! But, It’s also very difficult to tell what product is the best without the rants and raves of your most sought after customer, which are the result of your restaurant marketing and advertising efforts. Common sense dictates you’re looking to grow, unless your restaurant has more business than it can handle.. If you’re restaurant business is already growing than good for you, and if it’s stagnant you might want to pay attention to the fact that sales and marketing efforts are heavily out weighed by food cost cuts. Yes! That’s right! Cutting costs, because if the phrase food costs cuts is familiar, problematic, or unusual than you are ready for what I’m about to share.

Most food service distributors, at least the big ones, all sell the same exact things. Maybe, you receive different package sizes. Maybe, the pack-sizes received by your food service distributor are the same. But, regardless…there’s almost always a difference in price. If the prices are the same, there’s always those products with direct from the manufacturer rebates behind the curtain that you, as a restaurant operator, may or may not know anything about. The fact, prices are high, and or price are low is the effect of your restaurants demand.

Make sure to demand up-front pricing information from your food service distributor. This maybe in the form of a weekly order guide. Create a well organized master order guide that breaks it all down. This will make your life easy.

To learn how to set up a master order guide, and learn more food cutting cost tips, visit: http://foodcostblog.com You may contact me for a free excel spreadsheet template to assist in mapping your inventory.