A lot of food cost control and managing your inventory takes place during the day to day operations of your catering company, including food rotation and the cooking process.  The actual control though starts well before the kitchen work. Restaurant Catering Equipment To tighten up your food costs, remember these tips for picking up or receiving food orders and ingredients.

1. Getting What You Paid For - No matter what type of delivery company you're dealing with (meat, produce, dairy, etc.) you always need to double check your order to ensure that you're getting everything that you ordered and are paying for.  Avoid letting yourself get rushed by a late order or delivery that comes at the last minute. Catering Supplies - If you move forward without inspecting your order then you could wind up with the wrong product, or improper ingredients.  If you don't know until it's too late, then you could ruin an event for a client.


2. Do a Food Quality Check - The odds of getting the wrong items in your shipment or food delivery are kind of slim.  However the odds of an accident occurring that damage your food products is actually higher than you'd think.  A load could shift in transport, a crate could be dropped, stacks of boxes could suffer crush damage, etc.  Sometimes a box might make it out later than usual or suffer prolonged exposure to extreme temperature variances that alter the quality of the food.  When you get your stock in, always check it for appearance, quality and expiration.

3. Reject the Bad - No matter what kind of relationship you have with a vendor or company, you need to reject poor quality product when it comes in.  Don't be afraid to say no. Catering Kitchen Equipment -  You should also avoid letting the rush of the last minute delivery cloud your judgment.  Reject the order and if possible, replace it locally or use an alternative/substitute recipe.  Just remember to let clients know of any menu changes due to a deliver issue.
4. Minimize Unloading Time - Anytime you get a food order in, that order should be processed and put away as quickly as possible.  No matter how close you are to crunch time - even in the middle of right before an event - tackle the food and get it put away.   Restaurant Catering Equipment -The longer you exposure it to abnormal temperatures the more likely it is to spoil… and also the more likely it is to take up space, create a work hazard or just be in the way taking up needed work space.

5. Doing Order Counts - It's not uncommon for orders to come in when you're just not ready to deal with them.  Whether it's a phone call, an important client meeting with you, a meeting, prep that must get done, etc. you need to drop what you're doing to get the food and product shipment counted and processed.  It also needs to be done before the delivery driver leaves. Catering Supplies - It only takes a few minutes to count an order in but if you do it together with a witness right when it arrives then it's easy to account for missing items.

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