[mikefromzim]

Hello,

I need some help on costings for sugar sachets, I'l be short and sweet. Sorry, that was bad, I know.

at our restaurant we serve tea, coffee etc with three types of sweeteners, brown sugar, white sugar and canderal, all being different prices. Our magic inventory / pos system does its thing and deducts from each sale, currently we have put all three on the cost for the drinks, eg

Coffee: 19g @ $9.20 per kg =  $0.1748 per Drink

Milk: 9ml @ $1.40 per Ltr = $0.1260 per drink

Brown Sugar : 10g @ @3.51 per Kg =  $0.035 per drink

White Sugar : 10g @ @2.46 per Kg =  $0.024 per drink

Canderal : 1.3g @  @11.3  per Kg = $0.014 per drink

Total cost = $0.38 per serving

So it is deducting all 3 sweeteners from the system.

My boss does not like that, and has tasked me with finding a formula that works, and I am stumped!

I thought of turning them all into one stock item, as a sweetener combining and averaging, but it is not really working and the canderal is only 1.3g.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks!!! 

 

[kingfarvito]

I mean, realistically you're paying by the serving for the packets not by the weight right? If so and we assume that only 1 cup of coffee is being drank, the customer is always taking milk, and that they're using one sweetener chosen at random, you can just average the cost of the sweetener. Doing that gives you $0.024 and moves your cup of coffee price to $0.325.

But I'm also assuming you do free refills on coffee, if you really need a concrete number I would have servers count the cups of coffee and portions of cream dropped at tables, and count the remaining sugars when the table leaves over a 2 week period, that should give you a decent idea of what coffee service is running you. Its also a lot of work for coffee. 

 

[cheflayne]

Our magic inventory / pos system does its thing and deducts from each sale, currently we have put all three on the cost for the drinks...
So it is deducting all 3 sweeteners from the system.

My boss does not like that

What about that does your boss not like? Is it from the view point of pricing or from a view point of inventory?

 

[mikefromzim]

Basically he wants to know that at the end of the month, we can count the sugar, and match it up to what out inventory system says,

so if out of a 1000 box of white sugar, we physically count 80 sugar sachets (we don't count, we weigh) the computer pos should tell us we have 80 sachets of white sugar. sold 920 cups of coffee, also adding in the brown, and canderal.

We don't do free refills.when you order a coffee it comes with a sachet of sugar on the saucer.

Another "problem" is if there is someone like me, who doesn't take sugar, or someone who wants an extra sachet, what do you do? we can't charge someone for wanting extra sugar!! And I have tried to explain this to him, but he wants exact figures.

I am normally good at costing, but what he wants can't be done in my eyes. Driving me insane.

I tried explaining its like ketchup, you get people who have like, a tea spoon, and some who dump half a bottle. so you do a months average 20kg ketchup, 1000 covers, you get an average per cover.

BTW I think this sugar thing is a huge waste of time, 

 

[cheflayne]

He is throwing dollars at cents which makes no sense. There is a point of diminishing returns in trying to nail down exacts.

He is wasting manpower labor time to figure out the answer and the answer when figured out will probably waste more labor time due to more complicated cash register transactions and trying to train people to figure out the more complicated procedures, etc. etc. etc.

Definitely the tail wagging the dog.

 

[pete]

The way I would do, for costing purposes, is use the highest costing sweetener and use that in how I would cost out the cup of coffee.  That way if everyone choose the highest cost item I'm still good and if they choose the lower cost then that is gravy.  I know that doesn't help with your situation, but I agree with Layne, this guy is wasting time on something so insignificant.

 

[frankie007]

What does the sugar sachets have to do with you ? Aren't you a chef? Get a c'#@t to do it himself me says....