When you own more than one restaurant location, you’re bound to wear more than one hat. Think of all the contracts that go along with managing each of those locations. From Master Distribution Agreements and Manufacturer Contracts – the art of negotiating and managing these documents is truly one in its own.

It’s 2021 and its time to welcome a new player to your team – technology.

This team player is great at multitasking. They don’t complain, they don’t require a weekly paycheck, and they don’t need hand holding or constant reminders about what they’re supposed to be doing. Their results are instant, actionable and profitable.

No More Doing it the Hard Way

By using technology for things like contract approval workflows, edits, audits and signatures, implementation becomes easier and less time consuming. Businesses who adopt contract management technology are able to streamline the contract lifecycle into an automated workflow minimizing errors and maximizing profits.

Having to manually manage each contract step by step leaves room for errors or inaccuracies. Using technology ensures contracts are routed to the correct person and increases visibility and accountability. Contract management technology allows stakeholders more insight into the performance of a contract so they can make quicker more accurate business decisions.  

Secure Your Contracts in One Centralized Location

No more filing cabinets organized alphabetically. This isn’t the library, and you don’t have the time to go searching A through Z. Having your contracts securely centralized in one location helps you stay in control of contract chaos and allows for a more efficient contract management process.

The goal is to stay in control of each of your locations bottom line. Technology allows you to store all you contracts safely in one place and minimizes risk that goes along with contract management.

Contract Management Technology Solutions

At Consolidated Concepts, we can help multi-unit restaurants like yours save money on your contracts such as your MDA – your most important contract. We have former Presidents from distribution houses on our staff who lend their expertise to analyze your contracts, find areas where there may be new places for savings and help renegotiate your contract with your distributors. We do everything we can to make your contracts work in your favor.

It’s time to optimize your savings and limit the amount of increases in costs and changes in structure which ultimately result in more profitability for your business. You can even put our experts to the test by sending over your current contracts and having them analyzed.

Ready to streamline the contract management process and go from manual to automated? Contact us today!

Supply chain management is more than a one-person job. Especially for operators with multiple locations, doing it all manually can be stressful and time-consuming.

These days, restaurants are looking to run lean and reduce their overhead amidst a nation-wide staffing crisis. Others may be having trouble staffing full departments. How can an operator manage their supply chain projects without the staff to support them?

More and more operators are turning to full-service supply chain management solutions to minimize their costs and maximize their profits.

At Consolidated Concepts, our service offerings are fully customizable to provide the appropriate level of consultation and support required by each client.

Let’s look at three areas where we offer expertise to help you streamline your supply chain management and meet your resource needs:

Spend Intelligence and Insights into Your Business

Our data and technology are designed to identify areas where emerging, growing, and established restaurants can unlock additional opportunities to save money and boost profitability.

Consolidated Concepts’ clients have access to the most advanced food procurement and spend management tools in the industry. Client dashboards provide in-depth information into purchasing trends, commodity pricing, category-level breakdowns, rebate management, overcharges, location-level spending and more.

Contract Management

Technology has become a convenient way to automate your contract management and ensure price corrections are quickly resolved. By utilizing technology to manage your contracts, you get access to key  agreement insights that improve business decisions and ensure maximizes value.

Our technology monitors every line item that our clients purchase for contract compliance. Through digital reports to distributors and electronic invoice auditing, credits and price corrections are quickly resolved to fully maximize the value of all your negotiated contracts.

Produce Management

Produce management programs offer a wide variety of benefits to multi-unit restaurants. One major benefit for operators is full visibility throughout the produce process. Knowing the answer to questions such as where did the produce you purchased come from, who handled the produce, what safety measures were taken during the handling, and what route did the produce travel to get to your operation, are all vital for the protection of both your customers and your operation.

Working with produce experts ensures each item that comes through your doors meets the exact needs of your operation. Our expertly Managed Produce Program focuses on improving clients’ food programs’ quality, safety, and traceability.

Operators can fully outsource their sourcing and supply chain projects to our team of experts who can perform various functions such as product sourcing, contract negotiation, managing overcharges, managing inventory, looking for new distributor contracts and product specs, and more.

Talk to our experts about what sourcing projects you’re working on now and let’s find out how we can add our value and our expertise to your team.

In partnership with Tork

Reopening your operation these days is more than just ordering fresh inventory and investing in an Open sign. Now, you must take into consideration things like having less staff on hand, guest hygiene expectations and maintaining cleaner workstations.

As more people begin eating away from home in restaurants and at work, arm your operation with cost-effective safe solutions for your guests.

Let’s take a look at how using Tork Xpressnap Fit® napkin dispensers can reduce labor, save on space, promote a safe environment, and cut unused napkins thrown away by more than 50%*.

So Many Napkins, Too Many Hands!

With 67% of customers at a full-service restaurant preferring to receive their napkins via an enclosed dispenser on the table vs. restaurant staff bringing napkins to the table**, having the option for one-at-a-time dispensing can make or break a successful dining experience.

By using solutions like Tork Xpressnap, napkins are hygienically protected within a dispenser, providing a dry environment which is unsuitable for viral survival. So, napkins provided in dispensers should not give rise to concern regarding germ transmission. Even better, guests only touch the napkin they take.

You’re probably wondering what about before they make it into the dispenser? How are they kept safe and secure from germs? Fortunately, Tork is one step ahead. Xpressnap napkin bundles are individually wrapped for protection for improved hygiene and handling.

Less Staff? Reduce Labor!

No more wasted napkins. Is your staff spending too much time cleaning up unused napkins at your self-service station? Do customers grab a bunch of napkins at once time leaving a trail of unused ones along the way? Using one-at-a-time dispensers such as Tork Xpressnap can save time and reduce maintenance.

No more running out of napkins during peak business hours. Xpressnap Fit uses compressed napkin refills enabling the dispenser to hold more napkins and reducing storage requirements.. Each dispenser includes a level indicator that shows your staff when it’s time to refill so your guests always have access to the napkins they need. Even better? Each dispenser serves almost 2 times as many guests between those refills*.

Limited Space? No problem!

Are your current napkin dispensers taking up too much space in your operation? They can be such an eye sore. The Tork Xpressnap compact napkin dispensers for both tabletops and countertops is the perfect fit. They even cut napkin storage by up to 50%*. Their space saving fold serves a full-size napkin in a small footprint dispenser. Talk about good things coming in small packages.

More Brand Awareness? Promote Your Business!

The Tork Xpressnap customized display windows can be used as a promotional tool for your operation and increases your brand awareness. Thank your customers, add a QR code for your menu, share your hygiene protocols, feature carry-out and delivery options and highlight new menu items. Use the display panels on your new dispensers to boost your business.

Tork Has the Solution for You With Tork Xpressnap!

Ideal for limited-service restaurants that offer napkins at a table or a central location and for outdoor seating, Tork Xpressnap dispensers improve hygiene, reduce napkin consumption, and save on space.

Even better? Consolidated Concepts members get exclusive savings and discounts on this safe and secure solution.  Contact us today to learn more!

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

In partnership with Essity

Whether you offer takeout, delivery, or drive thru, securing good hygiene at every stage from kitchen to customer is now more important than ever. In fact, a recent survey from Essity found 60% of consumers have higher expectations of restaurant hygiene¹.

With the right tips and solutions, you can implement best practices in all areas of your operation to show your commitment to good hygiene.

From the pick-up window to the drive thru, supply your staff and stock up your high touch point restaurant areas with safe appropriate hygiene products.

Enforce Good Staff Hygiene

As an operator, your goal is to create a safe environment for everyone who walks through your doors. Consider your kitchen staff to be front line workers. A kitchen needs to be clean and organized in terms of placement, traceability, and people – not only to ensure sanitary demands but also to create a good workflow.

Enforcing hand hygiene routines, investing in handwashing stations, and making sure your staff cleans systematically can help secure employee hygiene standards. Your staff should have a clear understanding of how and when to wash their hands to reduce interruptions in serving customers and ensure compliance. Utilize posters to remind them of handwashing best practices and equip their workspace with the right hygiene solutions.

Secure Takeout Bags and Pick-Up Areas

Handling take-out packages with care, providing guests hygiene products with their to-go order, adding a personalized note letting them know you’re taking every precaution for their safety, and using tamper-proof packaging are all ways you can safely secure your takeout and to-go bags.

According to Datassential, 60% of consumers would feel comfortable if offered disinfectant wipers or sanitizer to use themselves. Arming your takeout bags with napkins, wipes, and other appropriate hygiene products is important – especially for drive thru orders and diners on the go.

Pick-up areas attract a lot of traffic with several high-touch points. Not only should you include appropriate hygiene products in takeout bags, but you should also be visibly wiping down high-touch areas where food is handed over. This shows guests they are in a safe hygienic environment.

Arm Delivery Staff with the Right Tools

Using tamper-proof packaging is key in delivery services. Providing that extra step in safety gives customers the confidence that their food went straight from the kitchen to their house.

It’s not only about the packaging. Make sure your delivery staff practices good hygiene at every step until the delivery is complete by offering deliver drivers sanitizers, wipes, and facemasks.

Posters in key areas with instructions on how staff should wash their hands, encouraging employees to practice good hygiene, and separating takeout zones from pick-up zones all reassure guests that you take hygiene seriously and are practice social distancing.

Tork Has Solutions to Help

Tork understands the challenges of securing off-premise hygiene and can help restaurants to keep it top of mind.

From soaps, sanitizers, and touch-free napkin and towel dispensers to surface wiping solutions – Tork offers products and expertise that can support restaurants in their drive to improve off-premise hygiene, ensuring a safer guest experience.

Highly visible hygiene products reassure guests that their safety is paramount, while custom print items such as Tork paper napkins can help keep a brand top-of-mind.

Best-in-class hygiene, with well-placed hand hygiene and surface cleaning products, can also contribute to better organized kitchens, more motivated staff, and improved workflow.

As a Consolidated Concepts client, you can get access to savings on Tork products and solutions like these every day! Contact us today!

References

1. Essity 2020-2021 Essentials initiative survey on Covid-19

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

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!