Managing Food Costs and Operations for Profitability

Optimise Your Menu for Improved Profitability
Gain techniques to analyse menu performance, adjust pricing and make informed decisions to boost margins.

Control Costs Effectively with Daily Practices
Learn how to monitor food waste, calculate daily food cost percentages, and streamline the purchasing process to reduce inefficiencies.

Increase Operational Efficiency Through Cost Analysis
Utilise variance analysis to identify and address gaps between planned and actual costs, supporting stronger financial outcomes.

Learning Outcomes

Learning Unit 1: Analysing Cost Awareness and Optimisation Strategies

Learning Objective 1: Analyse methods of building cost awareness and controlling costs to propose optimisation improvements in food services.

• Understanding the Importance of Cost Control: Identifying key cost areas and common risks for high expenditure.
• Applying menu engineering principles and strategic pricing to enhance profitability and control costs.
• Strategies for minimising food waste through operational efficiency and the use of technology.
• Evaluating modern F&B models, including cloud kitchens and centralised production, to optimise costs.
• Key Financial Ratios: An overview of essential restaurant ratios and their application in monitoring cost-effectiveness.

Learning Unit 2: Designing Cost Control Audits and Measuring Efficiency

Learning Objective 2: Design cost control audits using standard costing methods to measure the effectiveness of cost efficiency programmes.

• The Role of the Audit Cycle in maintaining financial health in F&B operations.
• Methodologies for Cost Control Audits: A practical guide to menu engineering audits and standard costing techniques.
• Using variance analysis to calculate food cost percentages and measure performance against standard costs.
• Analysing typical cost control audit findings specific to the Singapore F&B landscape.

Learning Unit 3: Developing Processes for Monitoring Purchasing Cycles

Learning Objective 3: Develop processes to monitor food purchasing cycles, including tracking inflows and outflows of inventory and supplies.

Learning Objective 4: Develop methods to optimise resource usage by reviewing purchasing cost activities for sufficiency and utilisation.

• The Purchasing and Inventory Cycle: An overview of the process for raw ingredients and equipment, including inventory and cash flow management.
• Strategic Purchasing Models: A comparison of Just-in-Time (JIT) versus the benefits of bulk purchasing.
• Leveraging Technology for Inventory Management to track stock and prevent common purchasing pitfalls.

Learning Unit 4: Implementing and Evaluating Cost Management Strategies

Learning Objective 5: Implement cost management strategies by monitoring staff purchasing activities in line with policies and procedures.

Learning Objective 6: Evaluate cost management outcomes by reviewing results to refine strategies.

• The Eight-Step Approach to Cost Control: A framework for systematic implementation.
• Monitoring Purchases and Engaging Staff through digital tools and targeted engagement strategies.
• Techniques for evaluating the effectiveness of cost management outcomes and using variance analysis to refine future strategies.

Minimum Entry Requirements

• Possess minimally a ‘N’ Level and/or listen, speak, read, and write English at a proficiency level equivalent to Employability Skills System Workplace Literacy (WPL) Level 5.
• Use numeracy skills equivalent to the Employability Skills System Workplace Numeracy (WPN) Level 3.
• Learners without the prerequisite will be allowed to be accepted in the course if they possess a minimum of 1 year of relevant work experience.