Food
10 ways to keep food costs down this year
Economists tend to bicker, but there was at least one source of agreement in their 2013 forecasts: food prices are going to increase 2 to 4 percent this year. With restaurant patrons still pinching pennies, raising menu prices may not be the best solution. So what are the alternatives?
Self-publishing a cookbook
For several years, Hank Holliday, owner of Peninsula Grill in Charleston, South Carolina’s Planter’s Inn, talked about doing a cookbook to showcase the restaurant’s culinary legacy.
If you’re balking at the wholesale price of 12-ounce center-cut steaks and extra-thick loin chops—and your customers are too—it’s time to rethink the protein portion of your menu. Meat is going to remain high through 2013, according to top economic indicators. “Wholesale prices are the same or up to 5 percent higher for beef and pork than last year,” says Bill Hahn, economist with the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
According to the samplers hanging in your finer Mongolian yurts, “If the herring stings when slapped across your face, don’t suggest a flounder.” Actually, I made that up, but you can almost see the scale marks on the faces of fast-food executives these days, so there’s some license to be taken. Besides, all of them should be dispatched to Mongolia if they go ahead with what they’re considering.