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Upgrading quality during downturns

Nation’s Restaurant News, April 20, 2009 by Pamela Parseghian

Many corporate chefs at chain restaurants, as well as those heading up fine-dining kitchens, say now–during a time of economic hardship–is the time to maintain or improve food quality, not decrease it.

Given lower commodity prices and the need to offer cash-strapped consumers better reasons to part with their money, some chefs say they are seizing the opportunity and improving dishes by purchasing superior products.

“We are exploiting these economic times to upgrade ingredients without affecting the bottom line,” says Stefano Cordova, vice president and corporate chef of Bertucci’s, the 90-unit Italian dinnerhouse chain based Northborough, Mass. “We are taking advantage of the commodity prices coming down.”

For example, Cordova says he recently started purchasing, “Sicilian sea salt; natural chicken; all-natural, unbleached, nonbromated flour and all-natural, hormone-free milk.”

Lower dairy prices have proven a boon in the ability to offer the hormone-free milk, he says.

“The price of dairy has definitely come down dramatically,” he says. “We moved from regular milk for the same price that we paid before. It was a good opportunity for us, especially since 90 percent of the milk is used for the kids’ menu. I had been trying to get that milk for a long time.”

Since lobster prices have come down by about 20 percent when compared with the same time last year, Cordova says he will highlight the seafood in an upcoming limited-time-offer dish with fettuccine and shrimp in a light cream sauce. The plan is to sell the dish for $16.95, the same price a tomato-based lobster and shrimp pasta dish sold for last spring. But this year there will be an extra ounce of seafood made up of half shrimp and half lobster, Cordova says.

Business at Bertucci’s has been “pretty much stable,” he says, with the exception that catering to businesses, especially for takeout lunches, is declining. Still, the per-person check average remains at about $14.50 to $15.

“It is much easier to gain profitability through increased sales, which means a better guest experience,” as opposed to cutting food costs, says Dennis Lombardi, executive vice president of foodservice strategies for WD Partners, a restaurant design and development firm based in Dublin, Ohio.

Negotiating down

“We’re seeing more independent operators banding together to create local co-ops,” Lombardi says. “There is even more pressure to negotiate the last 10th of a cent for larger chains. There’s a lot of science and a lot of art to negotiating.”

These days many practiced buyers are negotiating for long-term buying contracts, such as for 18-month periods, to ensure “stable and predictable” pricing in this shaky time, Lombardi says. But that’s a gamble, he adds, as prices rise and fall like a roller coaster.

Smart food buying “is like the old Vaudeville act of balancing a plate on a stick,” he explains. “It is a balancing act.”

Kelley Jones, managing partner of Suite & Tender in San Diego, says he’s finding savings by working with and building relations with vendors to “negotiate prices down.” He’s also taking advantage of “prompt-payment discounts” of 2 percent to 3 percent for paying within 15 days.

Full-circle cooking

Melissa Kelly of Primo Restaurant Ltd., which is based in Rockland, Maine, and has outlets in Orlando, Fla., and Tucson, Ariz., explains the key to her success boils down to total utilization of ingredients.

“I call it full-circle cooking,” she says. “Nothing gets wasted.”

She purchases whole lambs, veal calves, pigs and sides of beef and applies a lot of braises to the less tender cuts. She says that her guests enjoy such long-cooked dishes, which they can’t get everywhere. She’s also offered headcheese and even trotters when making use of animals from nose to toe.

The trick to getting her team to follow her lead is “to get staff involved,” she says. “I want them to understand the business and bottom line.”

At her Maine eatery, which is a seasonal operation, she raises pigs and grows edible plants, but those efforts aren’t a cost savings when labor costs are calculated.

“We’re lucky if we break even,” she admits.

In addition to access to just-picked quality, Kelly keeps up her farming for other side benefits like baby plants, such as pea shoots, edible blooms and wax from bees that are raised primarily for honey