Cornell Issues Comprehensive Food-Cost Training Program

10 Dec 2009

Cornell Issues Comprehensive Food-Cost Training Program

Cornell’s Center for Hospitality Research has released “The Eight-Step Approach to Controlling Food Costs,” by J. Bruce Tracey, which will help restaurant managers identify and eliminate extra food expenses. The training materials, which include a trainer’s manual, a participant’s guide, and a self-assessment workbook, are all available at no charge from the Center for Hospitality Research at www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/tools/.

“I designed this program so that managers of all types of restaurants can use it. Each step builds on the previous one, so that the manager can gain full control of food costs,” explained Tracey, who is an associate professor of management at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. “The key point of this program is to involve all employees in watching for waste and controlling costs. This is the most effective way to make sure that food costs don’t get out of hand.”

Using handouts and exercises, the program helps participants gain expertise in each of eight steps of food-cost control. The eight steps are: ordering, pricing, receiving, storage, issuing, production, portioning, and cash collection. Beyond that, the training program explains the critical step of how to enlist all employees in the effort to control food costs.

Exercises include how to determine the cost of each item in a recipe, how to store food properly (and identify storage issues), and how to ensure proper cash control. Once the program is complete, participants work with their supervisors to improve daily operations based on the cost-control principles that they have learned.

About The Center for Hospitality Research
A unit of the Cornell School of Hotel Administration, The Center for Hospitality Research (CHR) sponsors research designed to improve practices in the hospitality industry. Under the lead of the center’s 78 corporate affiliates, experienced scholars work closely with business executives to discover new insights into strategic, managerial and operating practices. The center also publishes the award-winning hospitality journal, the Cornell Hospitality Quarterly. To learn more about the center and its projects, visit www.chr.cornell.edu.