Not only is the purpose of a Group Purchasing Organization (GPO) to provide operators with access to pre-negotiated contracts designed to save them time and money, but also to streamline operations and optimize sourcing strategies.

Too good to be true? It’s true!

We hear objections and questions about GPOs all the time and love to dispel rumors about what it is that a GPO like Consolidated Concepts is really capable of. 

Let’s review some common objections about GPO’s and how we usually set them straight:

Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) Programs Rarely Return Increased Profitability

One objection to joining a GPO is that the program rarely returns increased profitability because it’s assumed a GPO only focuses on purchase-based management of a restaurants cash flow. This couldn’t be further from the truth.

A Group Purchasing Organization, such as Consolidated Concepts, encourages restaurants to utilize programs throughout a suite of services that help them get a handle on areas such as food cost management, cost of goods sold, master distribution agreements, inventory management practices, sku rationalization, menu engineering, portioning, fixed cost reduction, and more.

The easiest place for most restaurants to start is with a cash back GPO program that helps reduce their spend and put some money back into their bottom line. From there, GPO’s can help their clients dig into their purchasing data and address some of the more nuanced factors that contribute to their profitability.

You Have to Sacrifice Quality for Price

Another objection about joining a GPO is that operators must sacrifice the quality of their menu items or products to decrease their spend. Just because something is less expensive, or you get a better deal on it doesn’t mean the quality is any less.

It’s never encouraged to sacrifice quality for the sake of price. Contracts through GPO’s like Consolidated Concepts cover over 165k items ranging from premium to value options. So many restaurants are rightly focused on driving sales and top line revenue; a GPO seeks to help them grow more successful by taking a closer look at the cost side of the equation. For example, joining a produce management program can help operators improve the quality, safety and traceability of their food programs.

Today’s consumer, when choosing to spend dollars on foodservice, will not sacrifice their expectations of high quality. And they shouldn’t have to.

GPO’s Only Care About Costs Not Operational Behaviors

True sustainable growth does not only come from how much you save. 

It doesn’t matter if you are paying less for your supplies. If you are not aware of over portioning and are poorly prepared you cannot run a successful operation. The right GPO helps you focus on all these areas of your operation including inventory, food waste, portioning, plate costing and above all, top line sales management.

All these areas can be more profitable behaviors along with staff training, guest management, menu flow and mix and projected food cost expectations for what is being sold.

Group Purchasing Organizations such as Consolidated Concepts, do just that. By becoming a Consolidated Concepts member, restaurant operators earn cash back for free on rebate line items their restaurant purchases every day and gets access to resources that streamline their operation.

Contact Consolidated Concepts today to start leveraging our buying power, category specialists and broadline/negotiation expertise. Utilize our contracts, partners, experts and technology to reduce costs, improve quality, streamline the supply chain and gain valuable business insights.

It’s normally business in the front and party in the back when it comes to a haircut. But this isn’t a mullet and a pandemic is not a party we want to attend ever again. Nowadays, it’s more like business in the back-of-house while customers party at home. And the quality of your restaurant disposables can mean the difference of your customers enjoying that party at home or not.

Takeout and delivery are front and center for everyone in the restaurant industry right now – including customers. The food delivery services market was already growing prior to the pandemic. According to Hoffmaster, in 2019 the market was measured at $107.44 billion dollars and by 2023 it is expected to skyrocket to $154.34 billion dollars. It’s only accelerating and clearly not going away.

While 76% of consumers say a restaurants cleanliness and food safety will matter more after COVID-19, 75% of consumers say they would never visit or return to a restaurant that has been involved in a food safety incident.

With fewer touch points in the dining experience, orders are now handed through a window, dropped on a doorstep or picked up by a customer. Food is now going from the kitchen to the customer. Fewer touch points mean less contamination – which makes customers feel safer which is pretty important right now.

Let’s look at some solutions in the restaurant disosables category that are perfect for operators focused on take-out and delivery.

Convenience is a Big Factor

You get great quality food in the company of your own home. Consumers are looking for more takeout experiences right now that are safe and level up to more of a dine-in experience. Because less customers are coming into your operation, you need them to take that order home and feel like they are still getting some of the perks and fun experiences that they get when they dine-in. You want to send them home with a full experience – not just a meal.

Durable Packaging is Necessary

Customers don’t want to get a steak in a Styrofoam package. That does not send a good message. As an operator, you must think about other areas such as is your customer going to be reheating the meal when they get home? Will the food arrive fresh? You want a more higher end premium container that can be microwaved. You need packaging that holds well, doesn’t crack, and can make it through the reheating process. Products such as Hoffmaster’s Earthwise Takeout Containers, are durable, microwavable, and highly renewable. They are derived from Bagasse, the byproduct of sugarcane production. Talk about eco-friendly!

Safety is Key

More and more customers are using third party delivery services like DoorDash and Uber Eats. By using tamper-resistant products, you can provide a sense of relief to your hungry customers. It can be as simple as using Hoffmaster’s Peel and Seal Band. Customers feel safe because they can see the Peel and Seal Band is not torn and they know it went straight from the kitchen to their house and they can eat their food and feel confident that they’re safe.

Tamper-proof doesn’t only refer to containers. You can’t eat most food without a fork, knife or a spoon. A lot of times in the past, restaurant staff would just throw cutlery into the bag. It’s time to up the experience and think about the contamination factor there now with the pandemic. Customers want to know that their cutlery was thought of. Using Individually Wrapped Caterwrap cutlery sets can help the customer feel like they are eating at your restaurant and provides an extra layer of reassurance. Not only do you have a napkin wrapped around the cutlery, but you also have the plastic wrap.

From restaurants to healthcare facilities and schools, Hoffmaster’s broad product portfolio is found across a multitude of industries. Complete restaurant disposables foodservice leader in the industry, Hoffmaster products support many different occasions in the industry from in-house dining, eating, catering and to-go.

• Caterwrap
• Placemats
• Napkins
• Eco products
• Bakery
• Cutlery
• Table Covers
• Paper straws

To learn how your operation can save on restaurant disposables brands such as Hoffmaster, contact Consolidated Concepts today!

Interested in learning more? Submit the form below and a member of our team will reach out.

One of the most important things to ensuring your business is successful when you open your doors for indoor dining again is the navigation of the restaurant supply chain during and after the pandemic. As restaurants look towards patrons eating inside their operations again, many operators are balancing new sanitation guidelines with limited available inventory. Communication is the most important factor in operators successfully navigating the restaurant supply chain and surviving a pandemic.

Consider your indoor dining reopening as a soft opening. What contingencies do you have in place if there is gap or long wait for inventory when preparing for a successful reopening? Here are 3 things operators should be doing to manage the restaurant supply chain and ensure inventory is stocked for a successful dining room reopening:

Communicate with Distributors and Suppliers

It’s important that your distributors know your forecasted expectations in regard to your purchase volumes and any changes that you’ve made to your order guide. As more restaurants open for indoor dining, foot traffic increases, and distributors start to get busier, there will be an even larger focus on first come, first serve. So be ready to get your inventory and par lists together so your distributors have your order.

Here is a checklist of key things you should communicate to your distributors and suppliers before your indoor dining reopening:

• Items and specs for substitutions
• Daily communication schedule
• Changes made to your purchase volume and order guide products
• Disposables needs
• Any new chemical or sanitation needs
• New orders for non-perishable items like PPE, paper, plastic, and dry items

Conduct Inventory and Place Orders

Conduct an inventory count and place an order with your distributors to get all items to par level. Operators will have a better chance of receiving most, if not all, of their needed products if they order ahead of their indoor dining reopening. Make sure to speak with your distributor representative to discuss where substitutions can be made for those items that may have limited supply. Have that conversation in advance so you are prepared when it’s time to open those doors and let your customers back in.

Take an in-depth look at your needed supplies and the items listed on your menu that are more susceptible to a disruption in the supply chain now that more people will be dining inside your establishment. When it comes to inventory to support your take-out and curbside pick-up, these items are in higher demand now than ever. Communicate with your distributors about what disposable items you need and how frequently you will need them.

Know State and City Sanitation Guidelines

While you may be nervous that distributors and suppliers will be low on certain sanitation items, the truth is much different. Many manufacturers and suppliers of cleaning and sanitation products have been increasing their stock to ensure businesses can meet new federal and state sanitation guidelines. Not sure where to source the right products on spec? Consider connecting with your existing suppliers and distributors for product recommendations.

When it comes to understanding and managing the restaurant supply chain, our team of experts are ready and available to help! Contact us today!

Across the country, restaurants are adapting to a new normal. It’s impossible to say whether this ‘norm’ will be temporary or lead into a longer-term way of things. Regardless, restaurants are making changes to their food procurement and operational processes to keep operations running and profitable.

Food Procurement Approach

For some, this means operating as take-out only. For others, this means constructing new seating arrangements to meet local or state guidelines. Many restaurants are even adjusting their food procurement strategies and working with experts to maximize cost saving opportunities.

Regardless of how your restaurant is adjusting operations to serve customers, one of the biggest areas you should focus on is your menu offerings.

While the decision may be tough, adjusting your restaurant’s menu during COVID-19 can help ensure you make efficient food procurement decisions and generate profit.

Not sure where to start?

Our team of food procurement experts created some tips and strategies you can follow to help adjust your menu.

Keep reading to hear from our food procurement experts and learn about a few ways your restaurant can approach your COVID-19 food procurement and menu strategy.

Revise and Limit Your Offerings

While it may seem like reducing your menu offerings could hurt your operation when reopening, revising and limiting your menu is key.

Diners understand what is going on and are ready to encounter limited menus as places continue reopening. Removing some less popular dishes will not impact their dining experience but could save you big.

Our food procurement experts recommend looking at your sales report and identify your slow-moving items. Or, use the matrix below to help guide your decision making. This could be a great opportunity to remove those high cost, low profit dishes from your menu.

At the end of the day, if a dish is costing you more to have on the menu than you are making by selling it, consider removing it.

Rationalize Your SKUs

Now more than ever, it’s critical to ensure your ingredients are cross utilized. Not only will this help drive profitability, but it will also help streamline font line operations.

Our food procurement experts recommend spending time looking at your menu item performance and food cost metrics. Your high profitability, high popularity items may justify requiring a few unique ingredients to them. However, dishes that are less popular or profitable may require you to re-think the SKUs required.

If you do have some items that are profitable but less popular, it’s important that you make sure each ingredient used is also being leveraged in one or two other dishes.

By focusing on SKU rationalization, you can help ensure that your restaurant chain is maximizing on profitability while also avoiding potential risk of spoilage.

Balance Scratch vs Prepared Items

In the restaurant industry, labor and cost savings are key. To help achieve that, our food procurement experts recommend you consider balancing some prepared items into your menu.

Many restaurant professionals prefer creating items from scratch. However, current times require that you seriously consider what value scratch items are truly adding to the dish.

The foodservice industry offers a lot of high quality and cost-efficient solutions that you can utilize in your restaurant to help you save on time, labor, and inventory. Things like soup bases, sauce mixes, and dehydrated potatoes are a great option to help you minimize SKUs while maximizing taste and profit.

Ask your distributor reps and brokers to introduce you to value-added products and make sure that they fit your restaurant chain and menu application. Or, connect with us for personalized consultation (it’s free!)

Hear From Our Food Procurement Experts

This article only scratches the surface on ways you can approach menu engineering during COVID-19 to focus on profitability.

To learn more, we sat down with one of our food procurement experts to dive deeper into ways restaurants can approach menu engineering during COVID-19. Click the video below to watch.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0m7_zZvBVXnGttw8IsMRGmQKNoanTEmO

It’s impossible to predict how long we will be feeling the effects from COVID-19. For that reason, it is critical restaurant reassess their food procurement and menu engineering process to maximize profitability.

By following these tips from our food procurement experts, your restaurant can save on costs and ultimately reduce expenses. In this time of uncertainty, that’s crucial. The decisions may be tough to make, but they could be necessary for the success of your operation.

For additional help, the food procurement experts at Consolidated Concepts created tools and resources to help restaurants learn more. These resources provide additional information on menu engineering as you adapt your restaurant to current times. You can download the entire reopening guide, or access an easy-to-follow menu planning checklist.

Contact us!

Do you have additional questions on menu engineering? Or, are you interested in learning about other ways Consolidated Concepts can help your operation find cost saving opportunities? If so, contact us!

At Consolidated Concepts, our team of food procurement experts are dedicated to helping your business thrive. Plus, did we mention it’s free to join?

Now more than ever, proper hand hygiene is no longer an option – it is a responsibility.

Recent world events have magnified the importance of restaurants enforcing proper hand hygiene at their locations. With so many touchpoints throughout an operation, following the correct hygiene procedures can help ensure the health and safety of both your patrons and your staff.

Additionally, hygiene and cleanliness in food service operations can shape patron perceptions ¹.

A recent study revealed that customers will continue to be concerned about hygiene following the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in areas like restrooms and back of house ¹.

While using the right soaps and hand products are a big part of the hygiene process, it’s equally as important to focus on the steps you follow after washing. The proper hand drying products helps maximize sanitation while helping to reduce the risk of spreading germs.

Air Dryers vs Paper Towels

Two of the most popular hand-drying solutions for restaurants include traditional restroom paper towels and bathroom air dryers. While both products can be effective for drying, paper towels have the upper hand regarding sanitation and efficiency.

Still not convinced?

Here are 5 reasons why you should switch to restroom paper towels from bathroom air dryers.

 

From a hygiene viewpoint, paper towels are superior to electric air dryers and paper towels can dry hands efficiently, remove bacteria effectively and cause less contamination of the washroom environment.

Use of paper towels is especially important in facilities where hygiene is most critical, such as hospitals and health clinics ². But really, anywhere people need to turn off faucets or dry their hands after washing them, paper towels are preferred ³.

This one’s easy! Consumers prefer automated paper towel systems over air dryers 2.5 to 1 ³. Can’t beat those stats!

Air dryers may be less practical because of the longer time needed to achieve dry hands, with a possible negative impact on hand hygiene compliance.

Because it takes longer for people to achieve dry hands from an air dryer, many may dry their hands ineffectively when using them. This could lead to a possible negative impact on hand hygiene compliance ⁴.

One thing that goes without question – bathroom air dryers are noisy.

Many hand dryers operate at levels far louder than their manufacturers claim and at levels that are clearly dangerous to children’s hearing ⁵.

Restroom paper towels are a great option to alleviate the excess noise.

Air dryers spread germs.

Jet dryers disperse 20 times more virus than warm air dryers and over 190 times more virus than paper towels ⁶.

So, when it comes to drying hands, it’s easy to see why restroom paper towels are the “clean” winner.

Manufacturers like GP PRO (Georgia-Pacific) provide several great options of touchless paper towel dispensers. Products like the enMotion® Paper Towel System and the Pacific Blue Ultra™ Paper Towel System offer operators convenience and hygienic benefits for their restaurants. Both are easy to use and easy to maintain while helping to minimize waste.

Best of all? Consolidated Concepts clients can access these and more products from Georgia-Pacific at competitive pricing!

Contact Us!

Interested in learning more? Contact us today to add Georgia-Pacific paper towel dispensers to your operation, or to learn more about ways Consolidated Concepts can help your operation.

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References

1. GP Topline Trends PDF
2. Huang, C., Ma, W. and Stack, S. (2012) “The hygienic efficacy of different hand-drying methods: A review of the evidence”. Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Vol. 87 No. 8, pp. 791-798
3. GP PRO Proprietary Research: CPT-18-1829
4. World Health Organization Guidelines for Hand Hygiene in Healthcare (2009) (Section 11.1.5, pg 31)
5. Nora Louise Keegan, Children who say hand dryers ‘hurt my ears’ are correct: A real-world study examining the loudness of automated hand dryers in public places, Paediatrics & Child Health, pxz046, https://doi.org/10.1093/pch/pxz046
6. Kimmitt, p. T. And Redway, K. F., “evaluation of the potential for virus dispersal during hand drying: a comparison of three methods.” National center for biotechnology information (NCBI), U.S. National Library of Medicine. Journal of Applied Microbiology, February 2016, volume 120, issue 2, 478-486

As restaurants re-open their doors to welcome guests back into their dining rooms, many are struggling with idea of generating profit amid the challenges of low sales volume and an increase in expenses.  Restaurants are suddenly being asked to do more with less as city and state regulations necessitate an increase in spending on cleaning supplies, single-use menus, portion-sized condiments, disposable cutlery and personal protective equipment (PPE).  Additionally, the sudden increase in demand for off-premises meals means rising spending on disposables and carry-out materials as well as decreasing margins as operators pay 3^rd party delivery service fees.  So… just how is an operator expected to turn a profit all while reducing restaurant costs during COVID?

One key factor will be how well the operator gets creative about reducing and offsetting their costs.  One of the simplest things that restaurants can do maximize their cost savings potential is join a Group Purchasing Organization or, if they are already a GPO member, optimize their use of GPO savings that are available to them.  GPOs like Consolidated Concepts offer optimization services that can compare a restaurant’s purchases to their GPO contracts to find new products on which to save and earn rebates.  Easily-swappable, non-emotional items such as garbage can liners, gloves, frozen chicken breasts, and pepper can be subbed out and help operators earn additional rebates, which equate to cash back to the restaurant’s bottom line.  Additionally, many manufacturers are currently offering special pricing to GPO members on items that are in high-demand, such as disposables, portion control packs, and grab-and-go items.

GPO savings don’t begin and end in the kitchen.  Consolidated Concepts’s “Beyond Broadline” programs offer a wide variety of savings opportunities on non-food expenses such as uniforms from Chefworks, DirecTV packages, Skechers footwear, equipment suppliers, paint retailers and technologies like credit card processing, 3^rd party order consolidation, and telephone services.  All of these programs carry exclusive pricing for GPO members that restaurants would not otherwise have access to and are crucial expenses to trim back in order to offset the costs of other materials and services.

Labor utilization is also a key factor in controlling restaurant costs.  Given the nature of Paycheck Protection Program loans, it makes sense for operators to think about their employees and hires as ‘full time staff members’ as opposed to individual positions such as ‘line cook’ or ‘server’.  Restaurant staff should be expected to serve multiple functions: line cooks may also perform expediting duties and help sanitize areas of the restaurant, servers may also help stock the walk-in and take phone orders, and managers may perform duties such as washing dishes and helping to re-paint parts of the restaurant space.  These expectations should be clearly communicated to employees and should even be signed-off on so that staff members understand that for a certain period of time, their duties will extend beyond the confines of ‘normal’ restaurant roles. 

Cross-utilization certainly applies to ingredients as well as team members.  Successful restaurants will take the opportunity to re-tool their menus to focus on the biggest revenue-generating items and remove those that are adding unnecessary costs.  Menu items that utilize a lot of ingredients whose sole use is for that one dish should be carefully considered as food costs should be kept to an absolute minimum and food waste must be essentially eliminated in order to focus on profitability. 

Lastly, if there is one thing that restaurants should be investing in, it is technology.  This is the perfect time for restaurants to spend some of their loan money upfront to improve their processes for ordering food, tracking recipe costs and inventory, integrating with POS systems and managing cashless payments – all of which will result in better cost controls down the line.

There is now doubt that 2020 is going to be a tough year for every restaurant in the industry, but it is also a year for restaurants to focus on being smart, agile and lean. Those operators who keep their focus on their bottom lines – controlling costs and maximizing profits and reducing restaurant costs during COVID – are going to be the ones that not only survive, but capitalize on the available market share from those that ultimately wind up closing down. Questions or concerns? Contact us today.

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In recent weeks, restaurants have spent a lot of time focusing on ways to keep their operations running during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many shifted to third-party delivery platforms, reduced staff, and scaled down menu offerings to help minimize labor and cost. It was the necessary steps needed for operations to survive in a world without dine-in services.

Recently, parts of the country have started transitioning to life post-pandemic and began allowing restaurants to once again open their doors to dine-in guests at a limited capacity. Eventually this will extend to all states across the country and we will see restaurants everywhere welcoming patrons back.

With this new dawn approaching, it’s time for restaurants to shift their focus back to dine-in operations to ensure they are prepared to re-open. A big part of this focus needs to be on health, cleaning, and sanitation. Understandably, patrons may feel skeptical returning to physical operations due to lingering concerns around COVID-19 and other potential illnesses. However, there are some key steps restaurants can follow to help alleviate that concern.

Anticipate Needs and Concerns from Guests

There is a lot of uncertainty around how guests will adapt to dining in at restaurants again. What’s clear is that the public will have a heightened focus on cleanliness and sanitation and will be looking for a sense of safety upon their return¹.

One way to directly address this is to be proactive in sanitation efforts. Guests are uncomfortable using menus touched by other patrons? Replace them with single-use paper menus or encourage them to use their phones as the menu. Social distancing is a top concern? Utilize floor markers throughout restaurants to help maintain proper spacing between guests.

As restaurants start to re-open, there will likely be a slower volume of patrons coming in than before the pandemic. Being able to proactively anticipate and address the concerns of patrons will help create a sense of trust and allow guests to know that the restaurant is a safe place to begin reconvening life¹.

Follow Proper Cleaning Procedures

When it comes to re-opening locations in current times, cleaning and sanitizing must be top of mind for all operators. Most importantly, operating procedures must include the cleaning and sanitization of all-contact surfaces in both front and back of house². While it sounds like a simple task, there are several steps that need to be followed to ensure the spread of COVID-19 and other diseases are prevented.

1. Clean: remove physical dirt, dust, and debris from surfaces. This step does not kill germs and bacteria but impairs environments that harbor them ¹
2. Sanitize: reduces the occurrences and growth of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and pathogens on surfaces ¹
3. Disinfect: kills or destroys microscopic organisms and pathogens on surfaces. While it does not clean dirt or germs off the surface, it does prevent infection or disease transmissions by killing the pathogens

It may seem like a daunting task to ensure all steps are followed properly when cleaning the surfaces throughout a restaurant, but there are several tools available for operators. Organizations like the CDC have provided ample information on hygiene and sanitation for the food service industry. Additionally, Consolidated Concepts and Buyers Edge Platform have created a Sanitation Best Practices guide for operators to follow. Manufacturers like Unilever and Georgia-Pacific have also created checklists that restaurants can reference to ensure they properly clean their establishments to meet OSHA guidelines.

Communication is Key

Nearly as important as properly cleaning restaurants is communicating to patrons that cleaning measures are happening. This is a key step in the re-opening process. Whether beneficial or not, guest perception will quickly become a restaurant’s reality. If a patron questions the quality of an operation’s sanitation, it may impact their likelihood of returning.

Communication efforts should be focused on educating the guests of what proactive measures are being taken to keep a restaurant clean and help keep guests safe¹. It’s important to use visual and psychological cues to let guests know you are diligently following safe and effective cleaning and sanitation protocols.  Posting guidelines for social distancing by the entrances¹, hanging easy-to-follow hand hygiene guides in restrooms, and clearly identifying separate areas for pick-up or delivery are some ways to help proactively communicate efforts to patrons.

Additionally, it’s important to reinforce proper hand hygiene³ and cleaning procedures for staff throughout restaurants so guests can visually see the sanitation practices taking place. There are a number of products available from manufactures like Essity and Georgia-Pacific to help make this easy.

Prepare Personnel

Reinforcing proper hand hygiene and sanitation is a benefit for staff and patrons. There are additional steps available help ensure personnel is prepared to re-open the restaurant.

A big thing to consider when re-opening a restaurant is staffing. Due to ongoing concerns around COVID-19, restaurants should anticipate a potential lag in staffing in the early stages of re-opening. As a result, it’s important to be prepared to hire and onboard new personnel if needed¹.

From there, it is important to ensure the health of staff before they return to work. Adding a temperature kiosk is an easy way to protect the safety of employees and guests by preventing entry from anyone with a temperature. It’s also important to encourage employees to stay home if they are not feeling well.

All staff will need to be trained on new cleaning and sanitation processes and encouraged to practice them regularly. Keep ample cleaning supplies and easy-to-reference protocols readily available to staff throughout the restaurant. Sanitation checklists from Consolidated Concepts, Georgia-Pacific, Tork, and Unilever can be a great tool here.

If restaurants are planning to re-open dine-in services soon, it’s important to think ahead and prepare accordingly for the re-open process. COVID-19 has left a big impact on the industry and heavily influenced the public’s mind as it relates to health and sanitation. Having the right plan in place to tackle sanitation concerns can ultimately help operations succeed in the re-open process and gain back the trust of patrons.

Consolidated Concepts is here to help. If you are interested in learning about sanitation and cleaning products available through our platform or other ways a GPO can help you in the re-opening process, contact us! We’d love to meet you.

 

References:
Source 1
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Source 3

Whether your organization is growing from 1 to 2 locations, 10 to 20 locations or 50 to 500 locations, you are in transition and there are many factors involved in whether you will be successful with this growth. Many elements of your growth will create an emotional high of which there is nothing like it, but caution, there are many bumps in the road with growth of which some you will see, recognize and react to quickly and some that you will miss or not be prepared for.

The future of your organization depends on the pillars you have set up. The pillars may grow taller as you grow, but keeping them strong without crumbling is the challenge. Below are the five biggest growth challenges that you may face.

Capital and Financial Stability

In order to grow your brand, you have come up with one or many ways of raising the money you will need. This may include self-funding, independent investors, banks, private equity or a combination. You have big plans for your growth. Is this plan realistic and have you raised enough money to support it? In a perfect world, you would be dealing with a cookie cutter budget to work with. This would mean having AAA real estate with the exact same square footage costing you the same dollar per square foot with construction and other new store opening costs being the same for each location and all projections running on time. You would have no trouble hiring or training, your guests would line up from day one and your sales projections would be right where you had expected from the beginning and stayed that way forever. Unfortunately, projecting growth does not work like that and you have to plan for those twists and turns along the way. What you can’t be is under-capitalized as this will create pressures that affect the whole organization.

Financial stability of the company can’t be compromised by being under-capitalized with your growth. The restaurant locations that you have open must be able to be managed properly with no cutting of corners including vendors being paid on time. Your restaurants must continue to look sharp. One of the biggest growth issues is declining sales from existing locations simply because they are not being maintained properly and in general, because eyes are so much on the future that the present is not being focused on properly.

Real Estate/Site Selection

This appears obvious, but are you under pressure to grow at a pace that may not be realistic? This may cause you to choose locations that do not fit your standard for demographics, size prototype, dollar per square foot, landlord buildout support, construction costs (union vs non union), labor availability and cost of labor and so much more. You also have to factor in the added cost to your operations when you spread out to multiple markets.

One bad location will need four good ones to make up the needed bottom line.  It is critical to have a real estate specialist on staff or work with an external restaurant real estate company. In either case, they need to know the markets extremely well and be under the microscope to find you the standard that you have come up with. They need to have the connections with the landlords and development companies and understand all the parameters of what will provide you with successful restaurants. Every location will not be perfect. You will have some that exceed expectations and some that will fall a bit short, but the key is to avoid choosing the wrong markets and the wrong sites. Make sure you have a qualified real estate professional working on your behalf.

Infrastructure/Internal vs External Support

Growth requires the right people pushing the buttons. Along the way, no matter what the size of your company, there will be people wearing multiple hats. You need hybrids in every organization, but as you grow, you need specialists who have areas of expertise that will be critical to your success. As you grow, things become more complicated. You may have been a distributors dream in the original market that you started in and your buying power as a small regional chain may have been good. You may have been negotiating your own deals and developing the menu items that made you a success.

You may have picked your own real estate and was actively involved in each new store opening. Now you have to make some big decisions. Do you hire internally or do you bring in short term or long term specialists to make sure that you have the knowledge and expertise to make sure stay on the path to success. Typically it is best to do a combination of both. The crucial part of this is to be prepared. You need to continue to have a plan on the stages of when you need to add this support.

Systems and Consistency

Preparing for growth usually starts with the three areas above. You may have the money, locations and even the people to make it happen, but are you ready? Yes, you love your brand and you believe it is better than everyone else. You can’t wait to get it into different markets and confirm this, but are the systems in place to protect your brand? Without over the top detail, your brand will begin to look different from place to place. You have put your stamp on the design and layout of the locations. Now you have to do it from the restaurant set-up, training and operations. The team involved in the hiring and training of your restaurants staff will create the culture of your new restaurants. Yes, there needs to be clear training materials that are very visual in what the specifications of products are, how they should be prepped, how they should be served, how to store products and clean the restaurant, but you can’t put passion on a piece of paper. There are a lot of options for labor in today’s market.  Without good people who believe in your brand and who will execute your message, without you there, inconsistency will begin and your brand will slowly erode.

You need to put in checks and balances with continual corporate training and systems, but avoid cookie cutter openings when it comes to culture. You also must make it clear as to where there is no flexibility and where there is flexibility and what that means. Some things such as your proprietary products must be at every restaurant and your distributors must have them available even for your first location in a market, but it is not realistic to expect every ingredient to be the exact at every location. For instance, you may have a spec of a 14-18 ct Applewood smoked bacon from Smithfield for your locations, but in a new city where you are opening your first location, the distributor does not stock Smithfield for this item, but has two others with same spec. You should be cutting multiple products in advance and approving alternates. Once you build up volume, you can move to the original manufacturer.  Every location you open must feel like it is the only one. The focus needs to be on your standards so your guests can be wowed. By creating the systems and standards early, this can be accomplished.

Balancing Emotion in your decision making

From a company’s first location to their 500^th, restaurant brands all feel that their food, beverages, design, layout, menu and concept in general are the best and needs tweaking, but no real change. Restauranteurs have passion and are artists in their own way. Early success tells them that their critics (their customers) love them and will always love them. At the beginning, the founder and creator was in the restaurants a lot and spent time with their guests. They watched the quality of the food, they made sure the restaurants were clean and they could count on many relationships they created with vendors and their staff. As you grow, you begin to count on others to follow your lead and execute much of what you used to do. The food, service and cleanliness are assumed to be as great as ever and you assume that your customers will come to you forever. Is it possible that they love your burgers and come for that, but never liked your fries? Do you have fish n chips that are a big seller and you are using cod because you like cod, but your guest does not even know? You also will assume that your vendors and other outside relationships are the best and that your pricing on items is better than anyone else.

The first thing that should be clear is that your vendors and anyone else that you count on your business will always look out for themselves first and then you. There are things that you do not know that may not be as transparent as you think. If you feel a deal is too good to be true and so much better than others much larger than your organization, it is most likely not. As you grow, there are very important decisions that need to be made that allow you to keep your organization consistent, but growth may not allow you to do some of the things that you have always done in one region. Key initiatives such as local, organic, scratch, cut fresh must be maintained but not on everything. You need to be concerned about availability, labor, food safety, guest credit and so much more. Do you really need to make fresh guacamole in a restaurant that is primarily Italian? Do you really need beautiful hot house tomatoes for chopping and placing in your salsa? Does your guest really need for your burgers to be ground in each location and do they notice the difference? There are so many questions like this to be pondered as you grow. Ask lots of questions and stand by certain things and create alternate plans where you can. Make the decisions at your convenience as opposed to when you are forced to…..

There is nothing better than taking a brand and growing it. Understanding the challenges early in the process and doing the heavy lifting at the right time will make the chances of your success far greater.