Chapter 7 : How restaurants do their forecasting and food cost control process

Forecasting for a restaurant is a big challenge; it must be a high level of accuracy. A good forecast will usually be in hours rather than weeks. The manager must take in many factors to consider to forecasting and food cost control process for a restaurant. Such as the size of the restaurant, how many guest counts, how many hours the restaurant is open for, etc.

Every restaurant forecast their business differently and often gets very creative. For example, we are forecasting sales for a restaurant. We need to factor in the location, when does it get busy, what hours of the day are busiest, how many tables, how many guest can fit at maximum capacity.

Then the restaurant would do the math to considering the number of tables multiply the amount of guest on each table if at full capacity. Then estimate how long it would take a guest to have lunch/dinner. After we must figure out the turnover for each table and how many guests we are able to serve.

Also factor in the average cost of the meal. In order to conclude a high level of accuracy, restaurant must have reasonable information from personal experience. With an idea of what sales might be in a maximum day, the restaurant can now look at how sales might vary depending on the days of the week. This help shows a weekly base line. The restaurant cannot just multiple the sales by four weeks per month.

The point of a forecast is to not under/over buy food. If restaurants do not accurately forecast, then the restaurant can either over purchase and food goes to waste or under purchase which causes menu items running out and customers not returning because of it. Another main point of a forecast is under/overstaffing. Either the restaurant does not have enough staff causing customer dissatisfaction or overstaffing and the restaurant losing profit.