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MANAGING LABOR, FOOD, AND ENERGY COSTS IN SENIOR LIVING COMMUNITIES Good inventory practices can pare back


waste. It helps, too, for the staff to have an overall awareness that waste is an issue. Morrison Community Living is a food


vendor to over 350 senior living commu- nities. In addition to product, the compa- ny provides its clients with a “Waste Not” program that encourages waste awareness. Each kitchen station gets a receptacle to


gather waste, which is weighed and report- ed at the end of the week. “If the produce waste this week is 10 pounds, by next week or a month from now you want it to be five pounds,” said Calvin Neal, senior vice pres- ident of culinary and retail for Morrison Community Living. “This keeps waste front of mind for every employee, which makes people more cautious to not overcook the bacon, and to make sure that things are wrapped, labeled, and dated properly.” Food tracking likewise helps cut down on waste; it’s that resident satisfaction piece again. If you track what people are eating (or what food is being returned uneaten) you can better manage quantities across the food service process. A modern point-of-sale system can help with this, or a dining direc- tor can keep a tally on a traditional spread- sheet. The important thing is to keep the record. “A lot of people don’t do this. They just eyeball it,” Ernst said. “The people who don’t track end up over-ordering and food goes to waste.” In addition to managing inventories and minimizing waste, dining directors also can exert some control over the actual cost of food. Most prices are set by the market- place, but there is still some wiggle room. Morrison Community Living runs an “Imperfectly Delicious Produce” program, selling at a discount the fruits and veggies that aren’t pretty enough to make it to the top shelf. “Because the produce isn’t perfect, we purchase it at a much-reduced cost and that definitely reduces the produce cost for our customer,” Neal said. “Ninety-nine per- cent of the time we are chopping it up and doing something with it, so who cares if the carrot is crooked?” In fact, Ernst looks at produce in general


as a big potential cost saver. It’s a simple fact of agriculture and a longstanding truth in the food industry; when the crops come in, prices go down.


40 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE / ISSUE 5 2017 “You need to know what is in season and


work with vendors to get a special price list. Your produce vendor should give you a list every week of what is a good price and a smart buy. All of our vendors give us weekly smart buy lists and our chefs make seasonal menus to go hand in hand with that,” he said. While Harbor Retirement Associates


buys from a national vendor, chefs also have relationships with local produce and meat suppliers, to whom they can turn for seasonal deals and other special needs. This keeps costs down and foods fresh. “Our communities don’t have a lot of


storage space, so you have to have multiple deliveries a week, if not daily. Local sup- pliers can do that,” and they often can do it cheaper, Ernst said. “It can sometimes take more manpower and more work for a big national provider to get something to you, where going local simplifies things and brings down the price. There’s less travel cost, less warehouse expense.” Much of this falls on the shoulders of the dining director—ordering, planning, and tracking—but food service staff mem- bers across the board have a role to play in cost savings.


“If you have people in the kitchen washing


dishes, they see all of the food that comes back, so when I talk about waste I start with them. They can tell you exactly how much people are eating. This is a key person in detecting and tracking waste,” Ernst said. Servers play an equally vital role. “They


can tell you what residents like or dislike. You can tell them about selling special items that are in season or that you need to get rid of because the shelf life is expiring,” he said. This issue of what the staff sees and


knows takes us right back to the starting point of food service cost management: resident satisfaction. “I went into a community in Florida where


we were losing money; we were missing our food budgets, and in fact were almost spend- ing double what we allotted,” Ernst said. “We did a full inventory, checked all the systems, and found that things were not being done properly. The menu wasn’t planned based on what residents actually liked, so you couldn’t predict what you were serving, which led to over-ordering and waste.” Food costs and resident satisfaction go hand in hand. If one of these metrics is askew, chances are the other one is too, and it’s probably time to make some adjustments.


Regional Electricity Prices for the Commercial Sector Cents per Kilowatt-hour


PRICE LEVEL REGION


New England Middle Atlantic South Atlantic


East North Central East South Central West North Central


West South Central Mountain Pacific


U.S. Average 2016 $15.11 2017 2018 $14.12 $13.67


$12.54 $12.69 $12.80 $9.28 $9.43 $9.76


$9.86 $10.17 $10.41


$10.10 $10.58 $10.78 $9.47 $9.74 $9.96


$7.81


$9.56 $13.28


$7.91 $7.65


$9.60 $9.68 $13.67 $14.24


$10.37 $10.54 $10.67 GROWTH RATES 2016 to 2017 2017 to 2018


-6.6% 1.2% 1.6%


3.1%


4.8% 2.9%


1.3% 0.4% 2.9%


1.6% Source: U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, August 2017 projections


-3.2% 0.9% 3.5%


2.4% 1.9% 2.3%


-3.3% 0.8% 4.2%


1.2%


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