PURCHASING OVERVIEW

Introduction:

The Purchasing Process described below uses The Book of Yields and the accompanying set of Worksheets to help you determine how much food to buy or cost out… based on any amount of food you plan to prepare.

There are two groups of forms in the Purchasing Worksheets Set:

• The Recipe Unit-to-Purchase Unit Conversion Worksheets
• The Forms to manage the Purchasing Process and Order Food

Each Conversion Worksheet is used for a particular type of food: Produce, Canned Goods, Meats, Poultry, etc. To use them you begin with the Recipe Unit amount of food you need to serve or use. By filling in the worksheet you will convert your Recipe Unit Measures to Purchase Unit Measures.

The Purchasing Process and Order Forms are used to convert your Purchase Unit Measures (like pounds, heads, pieces, etc.) into Purchase Unit Packs such as Cases, Bags, etc. Using these forms, you then compare your current inventory (and Par Inventory needs) against the needed Purchase Unit Packs and ultimately make a Food Order with a vendor(s).

In a nutshell, these forms will help you to figure out how much food to buy to meet a food production plan and maintain Par Levels of Inventory.

Here is a summary of the steps to take in order to do just that:

1. Assemble the recipes needed for the production plan.
2. Combine all the identical ingredients in your recipes and total how much you need of each ingredient.
3. Use the individual Purchasing Worksheets to convert your ingredients from Recipe Unit Measures (like cups, ounces, trimmed produce, cooked pasta, steaks, etc.) back to Purchase Unit Measures (like pounds, ounces, pieces or counts).
4. Take a physical inventory to compare how much of these items you have on hand.
5. Compare your plan's food needs to your current inventory and par inventory levels. This tells you how much to order to produce your plan and maintain your minimum inventory levels after the production plan's foods are used up.
6. Convert the Purchase Unit Measures of the foods you need back to their equivalent Purchase Unit Packs (cases, boxes, etc.) in order to execute your plan and maintain your minimum-par inventory levels.
7. Order the food amounts you need.

Here is more detailed instruction for completing these steps:

Step 1. Gather your recipes.

Step 2. Go through the recipes and add up all the total Recipe-Unit-Measure amounts for each identical item.

For the event or period of time for which you are making up your production plan, figure out how many times you will need to make each recipe in order to serve the total number of customers expected. For instance, if a recipe serves 60 but you expect 600 guests, you need to multiply your ingredient measures times 10.

Record your totals on a scratch pad or use the Ingredient Aggregating Sheet. The Ingredient Aggregating Form will help you record the amounts needed for ingredients that are used in more than one recipe. For instance, you may use medium onions in 5 recipes. This form helps you combine all needs for each item on one page. You will total each food's needs by the type of Recipe Unit Measure.

Step 3. Use the various Purchasing Conversion Worksheets to convert your ingredients' Recipe Unit Measures back to Purchase Unit Measures.

Recipe Unit Measures are often small measures like Tablespoons, Cups Pints, Steaks, Fluid Ounces or Ounces.

Purchase Unit Measures are usually bigger: Pounds, Gallons, Heads or Pieces, etc. (These measures are often used to count inventory, by the way.)

A Purchase Unit Pack is an even bigger Unit: a Case, Box, Bag, etc. These are usually called "As-Purchased Units" or "Purchase Units".

A Purchase Unit Pack will contain a specific number of Purchase Unit Measures. For instance a bag (the Pack) of onions may weigh 50 pounds. So in this case, a Pound is the Purchase Unit Measure and a Bag is the Purchase Unit Pack. It's pretty common for the Pack to actually state how many Purchase Unit Measures it contains. For instance the bag of onions would be called a 50-pound bag rather than just a "bag". It just makes things clearer for everyone.

The Purchasing Conversion Worksheets are organized by Food Types: Fresh Herbs, Vegetables, Canned Goods, Starchy Items, etc. (They are categorized like the food lists in The Book of Yields. This makes it easier to find any food and its conversion equivalents or yield percentages.)

On each Purchasing Worksheet there are Conversion Formulas to use with specific ways of measuring that type of food. Select the formula that converts your Recipe Units back to a Purchase Unit Measure. Each Formula is followed by a series of boxes called "Tables" to fill in. Doing so completes the conversion formula. Just complete your conversions …going from the Recipe Unit Measures to the Purchase Unit Measures. The instructions for making these conversions are on each Worksheet and the forms themselves tell you what to add, subtract, divide or multiply, step by step.

You may have to make more than one conversion for the same food. For instance, if one recipe calls for a whole onion, while another calls for 2 cups of chopped onion, you will use the Produce Purchasing Conversion Worksheet for both ways of measuring the onion. In this case you may find the "Purchase Unit Measure Aggregating Worksheet" of some help. It provides a place to record and combine all the Recipe Unit Measures -to-Purchase Unit Measure conversions for the same food.

Now record your Purchase-Unit-Measure-Conversions-Answers for each food on the Amount Needed Worksheet. Write the Food Names in column A …And the Purchase Unit Measure Amounts in column D.

Step 4. Taking and recording the Inventory:

Physically count the quantity of the needed food items that you now have on hand. Count the inventory by the number of Purchase Unit Measures.

(By the way, counting inventory by Purchase Unit Packs is also a fairly common practice. Inventory lists often contain a mix of Purchase Unit Measures and Purchase Unit Packs. For instance, you might count onions by the pound or by the number of 50-pound bags on hand. If you have 25 pounds of onions on hand, you could enter that amount in your inventory count as either 25 pounds or as one-half of a 50-pound bag.)

(If you are taking a full inventory of all the foods in your kitchen, consider using the Inventory Sheet first and then transfer your totals to the Amount Needed Worksheet in columns B & C.) If you are only taking an inventory of the items you currently need for your production plan, you can enter your inventory totals directly into columns B & C of the Amount Needed Worksheet.

Step 5: Comparing your Minimum Par Levels to the amounts needed:

On the Amount Needed Worksheet subtract column D from column B. (You are subtracting the number of Purchase Unit Measures that you need for your production plan from the number of Purchase Unit Measures in your Current Inventory.) Record this answer in column E. This is the amount that you will still have in inventory after using the food needed for your production plan.

IMPORTANT: If column E is a Zero, this means your current inventory is exactly equal to the amount you need for your production plan. If column E is less than Zero, you don't have enough food on hand to meet your plan. You must order enough food to get column E to Zero or higher. How much higher? It depends on your Minimum Par level for the food in question. (A Minimum Par Level is the amount of a food that you want to always have on hand.)

Fill in your Minimum Par Inventory Level for each food in column F. Again, this amount should be stated in the same unit of measure as the others: the Purchase Unit Measure.

Subtract the amount in column E from your Minimum Par level in column F. Enter this difference in column G. This is the amount of food you need to order to make your plan and maintain your Minimum Par Level. If the number in column G is equal to or bigger than your Minimum Par level in column F, you do not have to order this food. You will have enough to make your production plan and still maintain your Minimum Par.

If you do not have a Minimum Par for this food, the amount in column E states how much you will still have in inventory after your production plan needs are met. If it is a Zero, your plan will wipe out your inventory. If it is less than Zero, you will have to order the amount in column E to just make your plan… but you should order more or else you will still be out of that food as soon as you produce your plan.

If you have No Minimum Par, use column G to record the amount in column E that is less than Zero. This is the amount you need to buy in order to simply produce your plan. If the food in question is one you normally use in your operation you should buy even more. Often times you don't have much choice in the matter. Say you are short 10 pounds of an item. That item may only be sold in Purchase Unit Packs of 20 pounds. Therefore you will have to order 20 pounds just to obtain the 10 pounds you need.

Step 6: Converting your Purchase Unit Measures to Purchase Unit Packs.

The Purchase Unit Packs are found in the accompanying Food Price List. If your food is not there you need to refer to a vendor's invoice or contact a vendor to determine that food's price and pack.

Use the Purchase-Unit-Measure to Purchase-Unit-Pack Worksheet to convert the numbers in column G on the Amount-Needed Worksheet to the amounts you need stated in Purchase-Unit-Packs. (There is an example for Rice already filled in on the Worksheet to help you see how this goes.)

In step 6 you are dividing the number of Purchase Unit Measures you need by the number of Purchase Unit Measures contained in one Purchase Unit Pack. Obviously the units of measure have to be identical. For instance, you have to use POUNDS as a Purchase Unit Measure if your Purchase Unit Pack is a 20-POUND box or a 40-pound case, etc.

This step is usually pretty simple. Answers from the Purchasing Worksheets are often measured in Pounds and Ounces. Converting a need for 10 or 30 pounds of rice to a number of 20-pound boxes (a Purchase Unit Pack for rice) is pretty straightforward. You divide the number of pounds you need by the number of pounds in the Purchase Unit Pack. Assume rice is sold in 20-pound boxes. For 10 pounds you'd divide 10 by 20 (10 ÷ 20 = .5). The answer is .5, which equals a half box. For 30 pounds (30 ¸20 = 1.5), the answer is 1.5 boxes.

However, Purchase Unit Packs for some foods can vary regarding how much a unit weighs. Many produce items, fresh herbs, for instance, are often sold by the bunch and vary in weight from week to week or even in the same delivery. If you are sold these items by the bunch or count rather than by a weight, you will need to monitor the relative weights of these food items and order a count using an average weight.

Why? The Purchasing formulas for fresh produce often result in an answer expressed as a weight. Since some of these foods (like fresh herbs or bunches of radishes or heads of cauliflower) differ in the size of their As-Purchased weight from one delivery to the next, you need to ask your vendor for current weight sizes of the items in question when doing your ordering. Frankly, your sales person may not know what the weights in question are, so you need to keep your own records of average weights for items of this type.

You can use the Food Weight Log to keep these records. (Instructions for doing this are on the Food Weight Log Sheets.) You would then enter your average weight of the item from your Log in column E of the Purchase-Unit-Measure to Purchase-Unit-Pack Worksheet to help you determine how many Purchase Unit Packs (or, As-Purchased Units) of this item you'll need.

Clear instructions for completing step 6 are printed on the Purchase-Unit-Measure to Purchase-Unit-Pack Worksheet. Filling in this worksheet tells you exactly how many Purchase Unit Packs you need to order. From there you will go to the last Purchasing Worksheet, the Food Order Form on which you will round off the number of Purchase Unit Packs needed to arrive at a practical order.

Step 7: Recording the final food order.

Use the Food Order Form to write up the number of Purchase Unit Packs you need to order. These are typically called As-Purchased Units or, A.P. Units. Use the Price List, price quotes from your vendor(s) or earlier invoices to fill in the cost of 1 Purchase Unit. The instructions on the Order Form tell you how to complete the item costing and totaling of your order.

You will have to round off many of the A.P. Unit amounts. Why? Because you usually have to order whole cases, cartons or boxes. So, despite the fact that you may only need 30 pounds of an item, you will have to buy 40 pounds if that item is only sold in 20-pound boxes… or 50 pounds if it only comes in 50 pound containers.

It is often possible to order "broken cases" of foods but if you do, the cost per pound or per count goes up. Fresh produce or canned goods may sometimes be ordered this way. Your supplier will advise you if a case cannot be broken down. If you do order an amount that is a "partial pack" - a broken case- expect to pay a premium for the amount you do buy.

Summary:

Many chefs learn to do much of this work "on the fly". However, when a special event comes up or when you are planning for a new food-service operation or when you are just starting out as a chef, these are the steps you need to carefully walk through before you can "fly" through them.
Stick with it … it does get easier and it does make a difference in your profits.

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. Amounts Needed vs. Par Worksheet
   4a. Inventory Form
   4b. Food Weight Log
5. Purchase Unit Measures-to-Purchase Unit Packs Worksheet
6. Final Order Sheet

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 explore the entire purchasing process more fully.