To combat rising costs, Pat Santostesano, general manager for Parkhurst at Highmark in Camp Hill, Pa., uses specialized tools to keep on top of food prices. Although standard for Parkhurst accounts, Santostesano talks about how these techniques can be adopted into any foodservice operation.
To deal with rising food costs, Parkhurst Dining Services rolled out several new initiatives, such as best practice seminars and new online communications, to help keep its operators knowledgable about the current food climate. Pat Santostesano, general manager for Parkhurst at Highmark in Camp Hill, Pa., talks about how these tools could be applied for any operator in need of ways to deal with the changing economy of foodservice.
“I’ve been with Parkhurst Dining Services for seven years. Since then, concerns and pressures regarding food inflation, safety and sourcing have been increasing. Parkhurst put together several tools to help its managers promote value during these tough times.
The most beneficial tool in my opinion is the produce market reports we receive weekly. It informs us what produce value offerings are available on a local level. [This is done through FarmSource—a local foods program that identifies more than 150 local farms, distributors and producers of food.] It helps with menu planning because it forecasts and overlaps into the next few weeks, so it tells us what types of produce are good values, what are higher priced items. For instance, I was looking at the report and the Idaho potato harvest was lower than expected. So I know potatoes are going to be more expensive, so perhaps we’ll have to minimize how much we menu potatoes. Also, since Highmark is a health insurance company, nutritional foods are really important. We work with their preventative services to make sure we provide as many healthy options as we can, and the fresh produce obviously is a big part of that. One of the more important things about the purchasing newsletter is that our team is always out there investigating new products so we don’t have to try blindly. We can be sure that whatever we use is going to be high quality. I think it is worth it for every operator to seek this information out because it helps keep food costs down, helps plan menus and budgets and helps keep the quality consistent.
Another helpful tool that I think other operators could benefit from is the online purchasing newsletter that we receive every other month. Things happen so fast in the commodities market that it’s difficult to keep up. What this does is pinpoint the most important things for us and the changing prices per week, especially because we use a lot of whole grains now. It’s tough because the client is demanding whole grains at a time when these prices are really going up. If you can find a source to seek it out, it would be very beneficial to put a similar report together because overall it saves you money and it makes your job easier. Sharing this information, especially with your chefs, would be in your best interest.
Parkhurst also puts on Best Practice seminars during our quarterly managers meetings. We hear from the purchasing, operating and sustainability teams. Topics range from food safety to making the switch from Styrofoam to biodegradable disposables, which I’m currently dealing with. We get a lot of education at these meetings that we can then use to educate our customers because many of them don’t understand the cost involved in being green and using biodegradable products. We have a target switchover date of Nov. 1 and the seminars really helped ease the transition.”