Measuring Outcomes

Staying on top of your budget is imperative in order to accurately detail your food, labor, and expenses as well as your incoming revenue. But successful operators take tracking a step further for a better outcome by including benchmarking of key performance indicators and regular reviews of operational processes.

Control Costs Through Benchmarking

Successful foodservice operators believe in the benefit of using key performance indicators (KPIs) to track costs. They help compare and evaluate factors crucial to success. You can get direct insight into the cost of your menu, as well as track measures of staff productivity as it relates to the menu and your operation. 

Popular KPIs include:

KPIs for tracking menu costs: 

• Food cost per resident/patient day.
• Non-food cost per resident/patient day.
• Supplement cost per resident/patient day.
• Total cost per resident/patient day.

KPIs for tracking operational costs:

• Labor hours per patient/resident day. 
• Cost net of cash per patient or resident day. 

These KPIs are calculated from monthly operating, inventory, and census reports. Even if your numbers look solid, improvement is likely possible. Compare current financial figures against your past performance, to other foodservice operations within your system, and even to external organizations similar to yours. Once you determine how you stack up, you can use that data to identify improvement opportunities, set new goals and justify costs to the administration. 

Using a benchmarking software program to ease the calculations and aggregate the numbers is helpful and reveals a snapshot of your individual performance. 

Gordon Food Service is a proud sponsor of ANFP Benchmarking and AHF Benchmarking Express programs

Take a Fresh Look

Taking a fresh look at your operation on a regular basis will help you control costs. Operational audits for critical procedures can show you where you may be wasting dollars, uncovering new savings opportunities.  Back-of-house reviews should include your day-to-day tasks in procurement, food storage, production, cleaning and sanitation, and meal delivery. Always remember to include a review of customer satisfaction. Your main goal is to achieve and maintain satisfaction for the people you are serving so track scores to assure needs are being met while watching costs.