Don’t Miss These Deals!
We’re back! Every week we look at data across the wholesale food market and find the product categories and tradeoffs that provide the biggest price savings. We can point you to the areas to focus on and have the best chance of finding an option that works for you. Maximize your impact with the minimum amount of effort.
Obviously, any time you are looking at product alternatives, the fit always depends on your situation. You will know best if the alternatives we identify can work for your business, your kitchen, and your customers. Now you know exactly where to look!
We also know that you don’t always want to have to change your vendor. All the opportunities below are from within single distributors! So here are the deals this week:
tl;dr
• Once again, the three biggest buckets for cost savings are Brand, Frozen, and Odds & Ends.
• Bigger potential savings in Produce (58%) this week, followed by Meat & Poultry (54%).
• While you can still find significant savings with a single vendor (46%-51%), this week we saw more savings across vendors (46%-60%), so if you are working with multiple you may want to do some comparison.
• Potential Cash and Carry savings (53%) are still in the same ballpark as within distributors, so make sure it is worth the extra effort.
Brand
Keeping most attributes consistent, there definitely are trends in several product categories where you can find better deals with some brands than others. There were fewer deals based on brand differences this week. Here are the average percent savings on a cost per weight basis we are seeing right now:
Whole Chicken: 20%-40%
Chicken Wings: 40%-50%
Beef Ribeye: 10%-15%
Bell Pepper: 20%-40%
Kale: 30%-40%
Mahi-Mahi: 20%-70%
Striped Bass: 10-15%
Beef Strip Loin: 10%-15%
Frozen
Frozen options are always at a discount to fresh, but the current market’s volatility is leading to more last-minute fresh to frozen (F2F) products from distributors. If a frozen option works for you, this can be an excellent opportunity to get your normal product at a huge discount.
Chicken WOG: 50%-80%
Chicken Wing: 50%-80%
Chicken Tenders: 50%-80%
Chicken Breast: 40%-80%
Beef Patties: 20%-80%
Bison Strip Loin: 20%-30%
Odds & Ends
There are often price differences when there are different attributes with similar products. The grade, size, source, and a long list of others impact the price. You made decisions on what you would source when you first decided on the menu item, but how often can you check what is going on with prices now? Can you make a slight adjustment to save money without negatively affecting the end dish? Here are some of the products you may want to look at your options:
Avocado #2 vs #1: 20%-35%
Red Grape Tomato bulk vs non-bulk: 40%-50%
Beef Strip Loin CAB vs Choice vs Select: 20% less for Choice, 30% less for Select
Beef Strip Loin End Pieces vs Primal: 20%-50%
Eggs Brown vs White: 10%-15%
Eggs Medium vs Large: 10%-20%
Eggs non-CA Compliant vs CA Compliant: 30%-50%
Remember, this is all a price-per-weight comparison.