“Point-of-sale information is so important to our performance,” said Daryl Bacon, Vice President–Food Services. “We receive quick feedback on new products we introduce, we can see the sales effect of any pricing changes, and we know what items are selling when and in what combination.”

What POS tells us about sales is the basis for multiple management decisions. The information helps store managers set work schedules to accommodate store traffic patterns. “To maintain the optimum balance between volume and stales, we need to know exactly how to stock our kitchens,” said Bacon. “Too much of a certain product leads to waste; too little means lost sales. We’ve reduced our stales factor roughly 1% a year over the last three years as we’ve raised sales an average of about 11%.”

In fiscal 2006, the amount of cheese we purchased increased from about 8 million pounds the year before to closer to 10 million, so what we paid for it was important. We took advantage of market conditions to lock in an excellent price through August of 2007.

Maintaining efficiency and quality control was a priority throughout the year. We don’t introduce new menu items that fail to meet our taste tests or that cannot be prepared using our existing equipment. The equipment standard helps us control capital costs, makes training much easier, and streamlines the introduction of new products.

“I said earlier that our size was making a difference,” Handley elaborated. “Our buying power makes it worthwhile to meet our particular specifications. Some of our suppliers have actually bought the same ovens we have in our kitchens so they can test compliance.”

We’re determined to be even better at running our proprietary food program tomorrow than we are today. We think our ongoing commitment to continuous improvement is a Mark of Distinction that will drive us to achieve our 2007 performance goal: increase same-store prepared food & fountain sales 7.9% with an average margin of 63.4%.