What Are Food-Purchasing Specifications?
Food-purchasing specifications refer to the quality, quantity and other important characteristics required in the products or ingredients purchased for preparing a food item. For example, a sirloin steak sandwich needs sirloin steak. The purchase specifications of sirloin steak may include its source, weight, type of packaging, delivery temperature, minimum order and maximum order. For each ingredient in a recipe, there must be a corresponding purchase specification.
Establishing food-purchasing specifications is important to every food-service business because it helps control costs. By knowing the exact quantity of ingredients required to prepare a standardized recipe and the number of servings it yields, the product cost, sales and profits can be computed. An increase in costs reduces the amount of profits, which implies that reassessing the food-purchase specifications might be necessary.
Knowing the purchase specifications can also help in determining the required inventory of stocks per day. A large amount of inventory may lead to spoilage, shrinkage, pilfering and higher storage costs. Avoiding these translates to savings for the company.
Finally, strictly following food-purchasing specifications is necessary to control the quality and safety standards of the food. This ensures that the food establishment prepares high-quality food products that are 100 percent safe to eat all the time.
