Operators respond to the ‘cataclysmic shift’ in food costs

Revey Wilson, senior director for foodservice marketing at Ventura Foods, which owns SunGlow, said restaurant suppliers were likely already working on potential replacements for hard-to-find and/or expensive ingredients, and they have the resources to test, sample, and validate changes to signature sauces, and added that this might be a time when historical “sacred cows” such as butter, might be worth reevaluation. “it’s up to the operator to know what are the ingredients that can have substitutes,” she said. Mike Turner, senior vice president of culinary and supply chain for casual-dining concept Walk-On’s, said that chain’s food cost actually dropped by 1%-1.5% over the past six months because they had locked in good commodity contracts early. Nate Weir, vice president of culinary for Modern Restaurant Concepts, which operates Modern Market and Lemonade concepts (and also recently purchased Qdoba, although he didn’t discuss that because it’s still being integrated, other than to joke that adding a chain with hundreds of locations would get them better deals on gloves), said that while the chains have traditionally relied on in-scratch preparations to cut down on food costs, that doesn’t work as well anymore as the cost of basic commodities is so high.