Restaurant Operators: Someone is stealing from you and it's not who you think...

My first year in business, a fellow restaurant owner advised me of the following:

"Trust no one in this business. The minute you think no one is stealing from you, will be the minute someone is stealing from you."

Coming from the corporate world, I thought he was overly cynical of the industry. Until I caught my first thief. It turned my stomach inside out. I never would have thought that someone could do that.

I had too much trust and one punk took that innocence away from me. Over the years, I have come to realize that those initial words of advice were more accurate than I thought.

Employee theft, customer theft, supplier theft and partner theft. It's everywhere. It seems like everyone is looking for a piece of the pie. Whether they feel entitled to it or not.

I wrote a book about employee theft. It's called "The Art of Restaurant Theft". You can download it for free at:  http://helpmeinc.ca

There's a bigger, deeper type of theft.
It isn't illegal, but it is highway robbery.
It is disguised by nice, smiling people, while they rip your bank account of all its cash.
It isn't a scam.
But it is wrong, nonetheless.

I recently analyzed two restaurants in similar markets. One restaurant had their food costs go up by 5% in 2 years. At first glance, it appeared that an employee might have been the culprit, either through theft, over portioning or waste.

The problem wasn't with an employee.
It was the food distributor.
In one year, food prices increased by more than 7%. Although the restaurant was raising prices to keep up with inflation, the food service supplier went well above inflation.
While the operator was asleep at the switch accepting the invoices without analysis.
When it was brought to the attention of the restauranteur, I was told that the folks at the distributor were like family. They would never do that to him.

A quick analysis showed that the operator was OVERBILLED by $50,000 a year for more than 4 years.
The food distributor legally STOLE $200,000 from this operator because he never thought to compare prices.

Relationships have value but not to that extent.
The distributor plays games. If they know you're watching the price of one item, they will be the cheapest in the market, while they inflate the prices of other items that are not being watched.

In the another case, the food distributor disguised prices by offering free vacations, rebate dollars and a free case of french fries from time to time. The second restaurant had a higher volume. In my analysis, they were overbilled for the same products by about $70,000 in the first year. With supplier rebates, the number was closer to $100,000 difference.

Over four years, the second restaurant operator lost $400,000 to the distributor. When they discovered what was going on, they were livid and refused to pay the remainder of their account of $30,000.

Their shiny, happy friends at the distributor took out their false smiles and revealed pearly white fangs as they slapped on high interest rates, threats of collection agencies and legal actions.

The food distributor used to be my supplier, until I found out they were constantly changing the prices of garbage bags to make up for the losses they were incurring on the protein I was buying. While I was watching the price of protein, my garbage bag prices were almost three times as much as anywhere else.

I felt lied to.
They cheated me.
I forgot about their silly games until I met with the above operators.

The two operators I met were both in trouble financially.
They both worked hard, every day trying to make a living.
As these jerks skimmed off their earnings.

This foolishness needs to stop.
I'm making it my personal mission to help restaurant operators from being taken advantage of by greedy suppliers.

Please share with everyone you know.
I will do a free analysis for any restaurant operator who is using one of these dirtbag suppliers.

Contact me at ricknicholson369@gmail.com.