Wendy's Franchisee Tackles Rising Food Costs with RTIconnect
Dave Hale knew his Wendy's restaurant could improve its operations with a back office system. The owner/operator of Wenbull, Inc., in West Plains, Mo., says, "RTIconnect has easily saved us thousands of dollars over a year's time. Honestly, I am kicking myself because we didn't get this five years ago. It has greatly improved our food cost. It actually dropped it in the beginning about 2.5 percent, which is phenomenal."
RTIconnect is a back office system designed specifically to help quick-service operators control food and labor costs, and track sales. Wenbull uses all of these features, but Hale says he has seen the biggest results from RTIconnect's prep and ordering tools. "We were having some food cost problems," he says. "We were just prepping way too much stuff that we didn't need, for example, salad and tomatoes. RTIconnect cut our costs down as far as how much we needed to order because we were no longer having this stock on hand. That was probably the biggest single factor, it's helped us see what we truly need and what we don't need."
RTIconnect is a back office system designed specifically to help quick-service operators control food and labor costs, and track sales. Wenbull uses all of these features, but Hale says he has seen the biggest results from RTIconnect's prep and ordering tools. "We were having some food cost problems," he says. "We were just prepping way too much stuff that we didn't need, for example, salad and tomatoes. RTIconnect cut our costs down as far as how much we needed to order because we were no longer having this stock on hand. That was probably the biggest single factor, it's helped us see what we truly need and what we don't need."
While improved food cost tops his list for why he uses RTIconnect, Hale says a major benefit is the ability to access his restaurant's information any time. "If I'm out of the office, and this is probably one of the features I love the best, I can get on RTIconnect and I can monitor everything. I can monitor my sales, how much food cost was; I can monitor labor; I can literally monitor everything."
Prior to implementing RTIconnect, Wenbull's four managers were doing their inventory management, purchasing, scheduling (all their back office processes) by hand. "I was looking for a system basically to help manage costs a little better, to help keep an eye on things better than what we were doing," says Hale.
Food cost management
"Improving food cost was our biggest goal this year, and RTIconnect has definitely helped us achieve that. Food has gotten really expensive this past year. The biggest thing for us is how RTIconnect manages food cost. That has been the biggest help for us, to truly see what we need to use and what we don't, as far as prepping items and having enough for the day. I use the bin charts on a daily basis and they have actually made it easier for my crew. Now, instead of playing a guessing game," says Hale, the crew has a good forecast of what they're going to use, and they don't have to monitor what customers are buying. "It's made it a lot easier on them, not to mention it has helped our product to be a lot fresher because we're not overcooking."
Also, he said, "It's helped us with product loss. If something comes up missing we can tell very easily." Actually, he added, the improved inventory control may work as a preventive measure. "Missing inventory hasn't been an issue, and I think this is partly because everyone knows that inventory is counted on such a regular basis, and [anything missing] is going to show up."
Hale also relies on RTIconnect's Daily Food Variance and Weekly Hours reports, checking both daily, and also on the software's "dashboard, a customized RTIconnect desktop screen that lets managers see at a glance pertinent information about how the restaurant is running. The dashboard displays menu items and quantity sold, total sales, and percent of sales of last week and this week, variance data, and an hourly sales/labor chart, plus any custom report he chooses. The Daily Food Variance Report lets Mr. Hale and his managers track their most expensive items, and the Weekly Hours Report shows him total hours worked and labor costs.