Customer call · Anonymous case story

Why Food Costs Differ Between Restaurant Locations

01 · Direct answer

What to check

Check transfers and shared prep before judging food-cost differences between locations. This call compares US Foods spending per $1,000 sold. The owner says some locations do prep for others without being paid for that work, so purchases and labor need to be allocated before comparing performance.

02 · Method

How to check it in your operation

Use matching periods. Reconcile opening stock, purchases, closing stock and food transferred in or out. Track prep labor separately so the location doing the work is not compared as if it served only its own customers.

03 · Scope limit

What this clip does not establish

Distributor spending per sales is not inventory-adjusted food cost. The clip does not provide the transfer records, inventory counts or an agreed cost target. The speaker’s view that costs remain too high is a judgment in the call, not a verified saving.

Related guide

Full transcript

Source-reconstructed transcript

Transcript reconstructed from the source words used for this cut. Location labels preserve the video’s anonymization; personal names omitted.

1. 00:00

   one way we measured it was we looked at

2. 00:03

   what was the spend with US Foods for every $1,000 that you sell. so there's about a $43 difference between the two stores based on the spend.

3. 00:14

   That's where our biggest lag is at right now is we're not, we're not paying those locations for all the prep that they're doing, for the labor, for all of that as well. So all the product, you know, mac and cheese bites, the pickles, and all that stuff that's getting prepped at that location for all of our locations

4. 00:31

   is not, uh, you know, is not-

5. 00:33

   Okay

6. 00:33

   being tracked.

7. 00:35

   just to be clear, you know, despite that fact, it's still way too high. Because, okay, all you're doing is sort of moving it on the ledger, but wherever it ends up on the ledger, it's still way above where it needs to be.

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