Interview With A Menus

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For my interview, I interviewed a family friend, Kate who does ordering for her deli. The menu there has many things from sandwiches to some bake goods and soups, among other things. I asked her questions about how she decides what to order, how often, damaged goods, suppliers…etc. I learned a lot from this interview, and I feel like it gave me some more comprehension of the hospitality purchasing field. From budgets to controlling inventory, there are little details that can make you make mistakes when ordering, so by talking to someone who has done this for a while it helps you to learn from their mistakes and their tips for purchasing. First of all, I asked her how she knows what she needs. Kate described the process as being easy for …show more content…

One of which was about the technology she uses when purchasing. She said she first uses old fashion pen and paper to write down what she needs, then after ordering it by phone, because the supplier calls her instead of vice versa, she enters it into a program on her computer that allows her to easily look up records for last year or even further back so she can more readily make future predictions. I found that interesting that she writes it down on paper first, but she explained it helps reduce mistakes by making sure her order is finalized before adding it to her computer. After hearing how she does her purchasing I was curious to know if she had a budget of sorts, something to make sure her spending wasn’t harming the business. She told me that yes she does have a budget but she gets a bonus if she stays below her budget. The amount she is given changes yearly based on sales, and she explained how she pretend she has about $1000 less to work with each year to make sure she stays within it, only using that last $1000 if she needs it. I thought that was an interesting tactic and very smart too, since she gets a bonus if she stays below her budget. Going back to an earlier question she commented on that working with a sometimes small budget was also a big challenge for her job. But what if a customer asked her order something special for them, I was curious what she would do in that situation. Kate replied that she is sometimes unable to do so, depending on how much of her budget she’s met already and if that customer is a regular or not, because they may only come in once and never buy the thing they ask for again. Then she would be left with a product that may or not sell and that a huge risk. If the supplier offers it she said she may depending on what it was and how expensive it was to order, and if she knows that particular customer. It made sense to me, because you’d want your

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