Supermarket Perimeter - June 2022 - 60

TECHNOLOGY
PRODUCTION
MANAGEMENT
by Andy Nelson
AT A TIME OF LABOR
SHORTAGES AND RAPID,
HARD-TO-PREDICT
INFLATIONARY PRESSURES,
it's more important than ever for
retail foodservice departments
and other areas of the fresh
perimeter to have reliable
production management
software solutions to maximize
efficiency and minimize waste.
Bronxville, New York-based
At-Your-Service Software
Inc., makers of cloud-based
ReciProfity food costing software,
is reshaping the help topics on its
platforms to better serve its retail
foodservice clients, said Matthew
Starobin, the company's CEO.
" Their needs different, which
we found out, " Starobin said.
" Invoice scanning is on the front
burner, which is very important
for medium-sized players. They
can input an invoice in its raw
form and flow it into our system. "
And for those customers
who want to set up a touchless
system, they can input their
invoice by email and it goes
directly into ReciProfity. That
alone, Starobin said, can easily
save operators four or five hours
of labor per week.
Production management
for retail foodservice is entirely
different than for restaurant
foodservice, and the latest
version of ReciProfity addresses
those differences.
At a restaurant, a typical prep
project might be making a sauce.
But in an instore prepared foods
section, prep might include
everything for a salad bar or a
grab-and-go meal section.
And currently, many retail
deli managers are making those
decisions without the aid of
production software.
" A lot of them are doing
In uncertain times, a systematic approach
to production management is crucial.
production on a 'best guess'
basis, and that often leads to over
requesting " ingredients, Starobin
said. " They know they're wasting
product, but they don't always
know where it occurs. "
Without very specific metrics
to inform their production
decisions, operators risk losing
a shocking amount of food to
waste, e.g. " using " a full case of
tomatoes for sandwiches when
they only needed two-thirds
of a case.
The trend of meal replacement
- consumers looking to prepared
foods sections and other areas
of the fresh perimeter for a
portion or their entire dinner or
other meal - is something that
companies like At Your Service
have to address to provide their
customers with the most up-todate
production software.
(That trend is moving in the
opposite direction, too, Starobin
noted: restaurants offering items
normally sold at retail.)
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supermarketperimeter.com
" That ability to manage
that process is very front and
center, " Starobin said. " Our retail
business is definitely trending
up. We do such a good job with
recipes, it's enabled us to add on
these features, like production
management. "
The rise in retail foodservice
keeps the producers of
production management
software on their toes, he added
- and as more and more retailers
begin to understand the benefits
of those programs, the demand
will continue to rise.
The company's software
can be especially helpful for
purveyors of prepared foods, a
category that can be especially
difficult to monitor because
ingredients needs to be sorted by
weight, Starobin said. That can't
be done effectively without a
high-end software solution.
" I talk to a lot of operators, "
Starobin said. " They're all putting
out the same ketchup and the
items that you have to have,
but they're not going to make
money on those. But to have
signature items that you can't
get anywhere else, that you
can't price-compare - stores are
pushing the prepared foods and
deli items much more. "
Creating those signature items,
and pairing them with other
perimeter foods to complete a
meal, is easy with ReciProfity's
ability to adapt on the fly,
depending on the individual
retailer's needs, Starobin said.
Another huge benefit of
management software like
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Supermarket Perimeter - June 2022

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