Case studies

CATERING · ROUGHLY 90 DAYS, FIRST WAVE

Multi-site catering and one central kitchen

Fourteen production points feeding events and retail. Food cost looked fine on paper until you compared the same SKU across sites. We stopped debating opinions and started counting.

HOTEL FOOD AND BEVERAGE · ABOUT 10 WEEKS

Hotel F&B with three outlets and one purchasing desk

Banquet, casual dining, and bar were buying like three separate companies. Storerooms doubled up on product and still ran out of what the banquet sheet needed Tuesday.

RESTAURANT GROUP · PHASED, ABOUT 4 MONTHS

PE-backed group after two quick acquisitions

New locations still ran the old owner's Excel and their vendor nicknames. Corporate could not compare week to week without three hours of cleanup.

CENTRAL KITCHEN · ROUGHLY 7 WEEKS

Commissary feeding stores that always ran short or buried

The commissary produced to a forecast nobody trusted. Stores either cleared the shelf by noon or threw half the tray next morning.

FULL-SERVICE RESTAURANTS · ABOUT 8 WEEKS

Labor model built for flat weeks, bleeding on peaks

Schedules repeated the same headcount whether covers were 180 or 320. Overtime ate the bonus pool and the best people burned out.

MULTI-UNIT · ABOUT 6 WEEKS

Inter-store transfers that never matched the books

Trucks moved daily. Paper said one thing, walk-in showed another. Month-end became archaeology.

HIGH-VOLUME INDEPENDENT · ROUGHLY 5 WEEKS DOCUMENTATION, ONGOING REINFORCEMENT

Star kitchen lead left and took the playbook in their head

The owner knew the food. They did not know every step the ex-exec chef had been skipping on paper. Quality wobbled within two weeks.

HOTEL · ABOUT 9 WEEKS

Banquet food cost that never tied to the BEO

Events were profitable on the sales quote and fuzzy in the kitchen. Leftovers walked out the back door as "staff meal" with no cap.

B&I · ABOUT 8 WEEKS

Corporate dining with a cost-plus contract and a bleeding pantry

The client paid a management fee plus pass-through. The team still ran retail snacks and coffee like a convenience store with no register discipline.