Cutting Food Costs with a Prime Vendor Agreement

I put up a blog post about using a prime vendor agreement to cut food costs in your restaurant.

I want to expand a little bit on the prime vendor agreement here.

Before you call on the major food distributors that service your area to try and negotiate a prime vendor agreement, a great first step is to actually find your tonage.

Tonage is the total pounds of product you will order over a 6 – 12 month period of time. The more you are expected to order, the lower your price. If you are prepared with this information in hand, you’ll be better prepared to shop for a reasonable and helpful prime vendor agreement.

It can take a couple to a few months to do a complete RFP (request for proposal) from ALL of your broad-line distributors to ultimately pick your prime vendor.

This agreement will help you cut as much as 3, 5 or even 7 percent off your orders.

David Scott Peters is a restaurant expert, speaker, coach and trainer for independent restaurant owners. He is the founder of TheRestaurantExpert.com and the developer of SMART Systems Pro,an online restaurant management software program helping the independent restaurant owner remain competitive and profitable in an industry boxed in by the big chain restaurants. He and a team of experienced and passionate coaches help restaurant owners solve their biggest financial and employee challenges so they can run successful and profitable businesses. Learn more atwww.TheRestaurantExpert.com.