Turning Excess Inventory Into Revenue

Turning Excess Inventory Into Revenue
By Dwayne Reno

Your restaurant's walk-in will have some excess food laying around. Weather it is produce or poultry the problem with this is storing food you can’t profit from is costly.

Finding a way to turn this around will help to free up valuable shelf space in your walk-in and turn your excess food into revenue. This week I would like to look at three ways to help your BOH turn excess inventory into profit.

Turn yesterdays poultry into today’s specials
A great way to profit from yesterday’s fried chicken is to add it to a slider with other fresh ingredients. This practice will help to alleviate inventory that would of just sat in your walk-in taking up space. All sorts or lunch specials can be created from yesterday’s poultry, soups, sandwiches and salads; the possibilities are endless you just need a little BOH ingenuity.

Pickle your  excess produce
If you tend to have a lot of vegetable spoilage, a good idea is to pickle any excess before it goes bad. That same pickled cabbage or carrots can then be added to yesterdays fried chicken slider menu special, helping to turn a profit. Pickling has been around for years, and is an easy process that helps to increase the shelf life of produce. This is a great way to turn a profit off produce that would have otherwise resulted in a loss.

Track what you are throwing away
Having an inventory management system can identify excess spending. Sometimes employee error can result in over ordering. Also make sure previously purchased items don't get looked over either. I suggest using a color dating system to help reduce employee error.

Shop smarter & advertise more!
Don’t buy what you don’t need unless you know you have a big weekend or event coming up. Over ordering can lead to spoilage which means loss of profits. Also, now that you have created new ways to generate profits from your excess inventory make sure you are getting the word out about these and other menu specials.

In-house and online marketing works best. If your restaurant, bar or café needs help generating in-house materials or an online marketing presences, BBA can help.

Until next time your customers want to know why they should spend money at your restaurant, bar or cafe. So give them the goods!

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