Updated information on best practices provides strategies for improving profitability and financial stability—just in time for a lagging restaurant industry.
Clifton Park, N.Y. – April 15, 2009 – Delmar, a part of Cengage Learning, announces a new edition of the highly regarded Practical Food & Beverage Cost Control by Clement Ojugo.
Practical Food & Beverage Cost Control (ISBN: 978-1-4283-3544-8), first published in 1999, has achieved prominence as one of the foodservice industry’s foremost texts on helping restaurants and F&B departments achieve and maintain financial success.
The new edition—replete with practical, step-by-step suggestions for employing cost-control concepts effectively—releases at a time when foodservice operations are more challenged than ever to realize profit in the midst of economic recession. According to The NPD Group, a leading market-research company, rising unemployment, eroding consumer confidence, market volatility, and other economic concerns will continue to take their toll on the restaurant industry through 2009. Total restaurant-industry traffic was down 1 percent at the end of 2008, and NPD forecasts in a report released earlier this year that 2009 will be an even tougher year for restaurants.
“The restaurant business is very unforgiving,” says author Ojugo, who points out that average profit margins are 5.6 percent for full-service operations and 9 percent for limited-service restaurants. “Not only is there little room for financial-management missteps, but these problems are also compounded by a lack of understanding and business skills” in the following areas:
· Operating expenses too high relative to sales
· Menu items not accurately documented and costed
· Excessive inventory items in relation to sales
· Inaccurate financial reporting
· Inadequate cash flow and absence of well-organized operating and financial controls.
Practical Food & Beverage Cost Control addresses these common problems from enlightening angles with key features:
· Information on menu development, budgeting, and manager return on investment (ROI)
· Expanded purchasing information including USDA guidelines and purchasing technology
· Expanded topic coverage including overhead costs and emerging trends such as sustainability and organic foods
· Various cost-control techniques with advantages and disadvantages, so readers can choose the best one for any circumstance
· Abundant charts and case studies throughout, making information lively, interesting, and easy to understand
Ojugo, a hospitality executive with more than 20 years’ experience in the hospitality industry, supplies readers with useful guidelines for assessing, interpreting, and planning food and beverage operations. Important financial information is also presented to assist in minimizing expenditures and maximizing profits. Unique coverage of issues such as “make or buy” decisions, inventory control, forecasting, and departmental interaction give this book a richness and relevance from which restaurant owners and operators, F&B directors, purchasing agents and inventory managers, hospitality and culinary instructors, and culinary-arts students will benefit.
“Regardless of one’s position in restaurant or F&B management, his or her goals will include cost control,” says Jim Gish, senior acquisitions editor at Delmar Cengage Learning. “This resource illustrates, step by step, how to isolate, identify and correct performance, and how to improve an operation’s financial position—information that can be put to use immediately in any foodservice application.”
For foodservice and hospitality educators, the Instructor Resources (ISBN: 978-1-4390-5704-9) for Practical Food & Beverage Cost Control offers valuable supplemental material, including classroom discussion topics, suggested activities and assignments, a computerized test bank, and lecture slides.
For more information about Practical Food & Beverage Cost Control, visit: www.hospitality-tourism.delmar.com.
About Cengage Learning
Delmar | Cengage Learning delivers highly customized learning solutions for professionals, colleges, universities, professors, students, libraries, government agencies, and corporations around the world. These solutions are delivered through specialized content, applications and services that foster academic excellence, professional development, and measurable learning outcomes. Cengage Learning’s existing company and imprint brands include Heinle, Gale, Wadsworth, Delmar Learning, Brooks/Cole and South-Western, among others. For more information on Cengage Learning please visit www.cengage.com.
