Most businesses review expenses on a regular basis.  Serv-U reviews expenses annually, quarterly and monthly.  One of the reoccurring topics at our annual meeting is evaluating the cost and benefits of outsourcing services.  Most small to medium businesses tend to remove as many outside services as possible and manage them within the organization.  Here are a few outside services that may be cost effective to bring in-house for a foodservice operation.

      Cleaning your own establishment may be cost effective and requires little training or up front cost.  If you have extensive cleaning requirements that you are outsourcing, you may be able to reduce the level of service from your janitorial service company and bring easier tasks in house.  General cleaning, such as floors, surfaces and bathrooms require minimal training, labor and equipment costs.  Mopping equipment is a little over $100 for mops, a bucket, chemicals, and signage. The initial cost of a commercial vacuum is between $200 - $300.  Bathroom supplies, pails, towels and chemicals are all inexpensive.  If more extensive services are to be outsourced, floor buffers, traffic mats, anti-fatigue mats, and kitchen apparel can all be cleaned in house.  Bringing janitorial services in-house was on Serv-U’s list two years ago when we purchased a 65,000 square foot distribution center.  We now do all of our janitorial services in-house resulting in increased quality of cleaning, reduced costs by over $2,000 per year, and reduced building access and security risks.

      In recent years, over 50% of our local market has used knife sharpening services despite the high costs and low quality knives.  Many of those establishments use the services because they need sharp knives, but don’t have the time to sharpen the knives on a regular basis.  I have many customers switching back to in-house knife sharpening to reduce expenses.  Most respond with positive results, specifically discussing how easy it actually is with better knife sharpening technology and the benefits of having better quality knives.  The knife sharpener costs range from $200 - $400.  Knife prices have a large range of costs depending on steel quality and grips.  Please review the link below from Edlund for an actual case study.  The EDLZ-0401 was used in the study and features an accurate knife guidance system for easier usage.

      Beer line cleaning is a must to ensure food safety and beer quality.  Beer line cleaning pumps cost $350 - $450 depending on the length of beer lines.  Beer line cleaner is less than $10 per bottle.  Pumps transfer beer line clear in and out of the lines and come complete with quick disconnect hoses.  Most bars can clean their lines in about an hour and save on cleaning services.

    Finding ways to reduce outside services not only reduces cots, but allows you control of the quality of services being performed.�� Many of these services can be replaced with low equipment costs, minimal training and low cost labor requirements.  If you have any tips or if you have tried any of the above ideas successfully, email your stories to us at servusales@servu-online.com and we will add them to this blog.  Thank you for your patronage.

Sincerely,

Chad Hemming

Vice President of Marketing


Additional Links:

Edlund: Knife Sharpeners vs Knife Sharpening Services