HOW THE WORKBOOK "WORKS"

Dear Instructor,

The purpose of this workbook is to help you teach Food Costing and Purchasing in conjunction with The Book of Yields. The Book of Yields contains a lot of very useful food measurement facts to facilitate that instruction. However, sifting through the thousands of facts in The Book of Yields can be a real chore. This Workbook will simplify that process and help you teach your students the reasoning skills and math needed to accurately, efficiently cost recipes and… order the right amount of food.

HOW THE WORKBOOK IS ORGANIZED:

There are three sections:

• Current Wholesale Food Prices and Packs
• Food (Ingredient) Costing Worksheets
• Food Purchasing Worksheets

The Food Price Section is compiled in Microsoft Excel. (So, you can add foods or change prices at will!) It contains a fairly comprehensive list of foods that are current for the 2000-2001 school year. The primary source of the prices is SYSCO. We included the wholesale packs so the list mimics the measures of Purchase Units that you would be ordering and receiving from a wholesale vendor. These Purchase Unit Measures are a very important part of the price list… and the entire Workbook. There are 17 pages in this set.

Note: if you do not have Microsoft Excel installed on your computer, you may also download the Food Price Section as static PDF files, viewable using Adobe Acrobat Reader.

The sequence of foods in the Price List follows the sequence of food tables in The Book of Yields. (There are additional foods in the Price List that are not covered in The Book of Yields such as bottled condiments, bases and frozen foods.) This list provides you and your students with a practical set of prices and packs that can be used in classroom exercises, assignments and tests.

The Costing Section contains a set of Cost-Breakdown Worksheets. The object of these worksheets is to show students how to cost out an ingredient's Recipe Unit Measure and correctly cost out an entire recipe. Therefore, we have included a Recipe Costing Worksheet (a Recipe Card) as a part of this section. They are numbered CW 1 through CW 17. (CW = Costing Worksheet)

The Recipe Card follows a standard format and tells the user which columns to multiply in order to "extend" an ingredient's unit cost to a total cost for that ingredient. The bottom of this form lists a variety of Yield Measurements by which the total amount produced from the recipe can be measured… and, through its simple format and "on-page" instructions, enables the user to determine the cost(s) of any Yield Measure(s).

The actual Costing Worksheets are designed to be used with specific foods or types of foods. For instance, there is a worksheet for dry herbs, another for items you trim or trim and then use by volume measures, one for poultry, another for going from a dry good bought by weight but used by volume… and so on. There is a separate document in this set called the Worksheet Guide that lists each worksheet and names the types of foods to use with it.

We suggest you take 20 minutes to familiarize yourself with this set of Costing Worksheets. As you do, notice that each one follows the same logical approach to doing a cost-breakdown. Each worksheet starts with a Food in an "As-Purchased" amount… the Purchase Unit. The user (your student) then gets the Cost of the Purchase Unit from the Price List and enters it on the worksheet. From that point on the user does a cost 'breakdown' following the instruction on the right side of each line on the worksheet. Every line on every costing worksheet gives the exact instruction regarding where to get the information needed or how to do the math in that step.

At a certain point it is often necessary to "plug in" a measure from The Book of Yields in order to complete the costing process. This is usually a trim yield percentage, a weight-to-volume equivalent or a cooking yield. This is a critical step and shows you exactly where, when and how to use The Book of Yields.

For instance, say your recipe calls for 5 Tablespoons of dry whole-leaf Basil. The top of the Dry Herbs Worksheet will first show your student how to calculate the cost of 1 Ounce of Basil. The Book of Yields then tells them how many Tablespoons of Basil are in 1 Ounce. They write in that number on the Worksheet and then the Worksheet Instruction tells them to divide the Ounce Cost by that number in order to get the Cost per Tablespoon. Now they can enter that Recipe-Unit (Tablespoon) cost on their Recipe Card.

Here, in a nutshell, is how the Costing Worksheets work:

RECIPE >>> WORKSHEET >>> PRICE LIST >>> WORKSHEET >>> BOOK OF YIELDS >>> WORKSHEET >>> RECIPE

• You start with a list of ingredients on a Recipe Card
• Select the Worksheet appropriate for the food type and enter the food name at the top
• Refer to the Price List for the Purchase Unit and Price
• Enter the Price and Pack information on the Worksheet
• Proceed to "Breakdown" the Food measures and Costs following the step-by-step instructions on the worksheet
• Plug in the Conversion or Yield amount from The Book of Yields where necessary
• Complete the worksheet… at which point you will have arrived at the cost of the Recipe Unit Measure
• Enter the Recipe Unit Measure on the Recipe Card
• Complete this process for all ingredients and add up the Unit Cost Column on the Recipe Card. This will be your Total Recipe Cost
• Enter the Recipe Yield Information you want to use on the Recipe Card (20 portions, 2 gallons, 12 loaves, etc.)
• Calculate the Cost per Yield-Unit-of-Measure.

The Costing Worksheets make it practical to use The Book of Yields in your instructions. In fact they will really speed up the process of teaching Recipe Costing for a couple of important reasons:

• They "organize" the process, showing your students how to logically go from a Purchase Unit to a Recipe Unit
• They show your students How To Do The MATH!

The Purchasing Section contains both worksheets and forms that take all the recipes you will use for an event or a period of time …and convert their Recipe Units back to Purchase Units.

The purchasing process is more complicated than costing recipes. The "Purchasing Overview" document included in this Workbook explains the procedure in detail. It explains the Purchasing Procedure and how to use the forms and worksheets.

During the Purchasing Process you are going to combine all the same ingredients from your recipes, convert the needed number of Recipe Unit Measures (Tablespoons, Ounces, Piece Counts, Portions, etc.) to an equivalent number of Purchase Unit Measures (Pounds, Gallons, etc.) and then convert those measures to actual Purchase Unit Packs… the As-Purchased Units.

Along the way you will also be able to compare the Purchase Unit Measure amounts that you need for a Production Plan… to your Current Inventory and Par Stock Levels. You'll finish by filling out a Food Order Form.

Again, this process is more fully explained in the Purchasing Overview document. The Purchasing Set is paginated PW 1 through PW 23.

The Purchasing Conversion Worksheets (like the Costing Worksheets) are used with specific types of foods. They are clearly named after the kind(s) of food they convert. The formulas that enable you to convert a Recipe Unit back to a Purchase Unit are on each worksheet. (These formulas, along with examples of how to use them, are also found in The Book of Yields in the Helps Pages preceding each food table in the book.)

Pricing information is not needed to complete the Purchasing Worksheets. The Purchase Unit Prices are only used in the final step of filling out the Food Order Form.

Each Purchasing Conversion Worksheet states the formula for that food or type of food and gives the instruction for filling in a short series of "boxes" that lead the student to the answer. The "operators" (/, x, -, + or =) are already there between the boxes on each line. This format makes it very easy for your students to follow the formula.

There is one Purchasing Worksheet that does not rely on the Yields and Equivalents in The Book of Yields for completion, the "Flavor Bases" worksheet. The Book of Yields does not address these products because their yields are specific to the brand of flavor base being used and the yield data is always provided on the product's container. The worksheet explains all this rather completely and enables the student to determine how much to buy or cost out… just like all the other conversions worksheets.

Here is a list of the Forms you will be using in the Purchasing Process… from start to finish.

1. Recipe Cards
2. Ingredient Aggregating Form
3. Recipe Unit Measures-to-Purchase Unit Measures CONVERSION Worksheets
   3a. Purchase Unit Measures Aggregating Worksheet
4. Amount Needed Worksheet
   4a. Inventory Form
   4b. Food Weight Log
5. Purchase Unit Measures-to-Purchase Unit Packs Worksheet
6. Food Order Form

You may not need the subordinate forms (labeled "a" or "b") in all situations. They are optional. However, they do make the process complete and will help you to explain the entire purchasing process more fully.

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There is a separate document among the Purchasing Group of Worksheets entitled "Trimmed vs. Un-trimmed Prices". It addresses the problem of determining the price-point at which the food cost of a pre-trimmed food is lower than the cost of buying the same food in a raw, un-trimmed state. A Worksheet Table for completing this calculation is provided at the end of that document. It will help your students understand the concept and complete any exercise you may create on the subject.
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These Costing and Purchasing Worksheets are provided free of charge. Although copyrighted, they can be reproduced as much as you need to but only for your instructional and/or your personal professional needs.