Topic · 8 guides
Suppliers & purchasing
Invoice audits, price creep, vendor comparison, and what to do when your distributor raises mid-contract.
Guides in this topic
- Suppliers & purchasing
Butter vs. margarine cost: compare cost per sellable bake
Compare baking fats by finished product cost, not pack price. Use a test-batch record and a break-even reject calculation before changing a recipe.
· 4 min read - Suppliers & purchasing
Sysco vs US Foods vs Restaurant Depot: Delivery or Pickup?
Compare delivery, membership and pickup costs using current supplier sources and a worked shopping-basket example. Choose a route for your restaurant's actual order.
· 7 min read - Suppliers & purchasing
Whole vs. boneless chicken: which costs less per usable portion?
Compare chicken purchase specifications using usable cooked yield, prep time and demand for each cut. Includes a worked break-even purchase price.
· 4 min read - Suppliers & purchasing
Food Price Forecast 2027: USDA's Numbers for Restaurant Ingredients, and How Far to Trust Them
USDA's 2027 forecasts for restaurant prices, beef, poultry, dairy, eggs and wholesale costs, an 11-year check of how far such forecasts miss, and a worked 2027 food budget.
· 10 min read - Suppliers & purchasing
#10 Can Size and Other Can Sizes: What Each Holds and How to Cost It
USDA's common can sizes — No. 10, No. 3 cylinder, No. 2½ and smaller — with net weight, cups and drained yields, and how to cost canned goods per usable cup.
· 5 min read - Suppliers & purchasing
Seasonal Food Prices: Which Ingredients Follow the Calendar, From 10 Years of BLS Data
Month-by-month price patterns for ten restaurant ingredients from BLS data, 2016–2025: which follow the seasons, which move on shocks and trends, and how to plan a menu around each.
· 6 min read - Suppliers & purchasing
How to Compare Restaurant Supplier Prices When Case Sizes Differ
Compare supplier quotes by purchased and usable units, including pack sizes, yields and known fees. Follow a worked case-to-portion example.
· 3 min read - Suppliers & purchasing
Restaurant Invoice Price Audit: Check the Line Before Updating Recipe Costs
Check supplier invoice prices, smaller packs, catch weights and credits before updating recipe costs. Worked examples show what changes and what stays unresolved.
· 7 min read
Terms these guides define
- Substitution cost
- The cost consequence of swapping one ingredient for another — including the yield and labour differences the price tag doesn't show.
- Butcher's test
- A measured breakdown of a purchased cut, assigning its cost to the main cut and usable by-products.
- CPI: food away from home
- The Consumer Price Index for what diners pay at restaurants and other foodservice — the national measure of menu price inflation.
- Commodity index
- A tracked measure of what a food commodity costs nationally — the benchmark that separates a market move from a vendor move.
- Pack size
- How a product is packaged — units per case and size per unit. Changes to it are price changes in disguise.
- Case price vs. unit price
- Case price is the cost of a whole package; unit price divides that cost by its total weight, volume or item count.
- Seasonality index
- A month-by-month multiplier describing how an ingredient's price or a restaurant's volume moves through the year.
- Edible portion vs. as-purchased
- As purchased (AP) describes food in the form you buy it; edible portion (EP) describes the usable amount after a specified preparation step.
- Catch weight
- Items priced by actual weight rather than by a fixed case quantity — most proteins and cheeses.
- Bid sheet
- A side-by-side comparison of the same items across suppliers, normalised to a comparable unit price.
- Invoice reconciliation
- Checking that what you ordered, what arrived, and what you were billed are the same three things.
- Price creep
- Small, frequent supplier price increases that individually look ignorable and collectively remove several points of margin a year.
- Credit memo
- A supplier document reducing what you owe — for a short, damaged, or wrongly-priced delivery.