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Upcoming Inventory, more on Gross Margins

27.6.05
Well, my store's owners decided that the perfect time to do inventory was this Thursday. As in right before the biggest 3 Day weekend for a meat dept. all year. Also the day we get our last truck before the 4th of July. So I'm going to be extremely long on most of my product to get us through the weekend, and I have to inventory all of it. This will also obvioulsy effect our numbers.

On the margin side of things, I reintroduced some old practices from past jobs with seemingly good success so far.

First was Beef Kabobs and Chicken Kabobs; always a money maker. Firstly, I use Sirloin Tip for the beef, which keeps my margins high since it's significantly cheaper wholesale than Top Butt/Sirloin. Secondly, I use fesh/frozen chicken breasts for the chicken, which I usually retail at below $3 a pound and I charge the same per pound for them as I do the beef: $4/lbs. This already had me doubling my GM on chicken, and staying even on my beef. Then we add value. Load those things full of veggies. The heavier the better. Not only are the colorful and eye-catching, they all have a signifcantly lower cost than my meat and I get to charge $4/lbs for Red Onion, white mushrooms, green peppers and Cherry tomatoes. In all, I raise my Gm by 50% with my beef, and am makeing over 100% GM on my chicken. Cha-Ching.

Next was bringing in pectoral meat. This is basically triangular trim peices that come from the top of the brisket. My cost is a little higher ($1.84) than a lost of my whole meats, but they are fully trimmed, so there is zero waste and next to no grind trim off of it. I cut strips across the grain for Country Style Beef ribs, cube and tenderize (or not) for extra lean stew meat, chunk and tenderize for Cube/Minute steaks, and in a pinch, can grind a bag for some quick 95% lean ground beef (which I usually don't ever carry). I'm amking 70% margins on my ribs and stew meat, raised my cube steak margins by 10% (was just cutting them off whatever subprimals I had on sale that week) and have a wider range of selections in the case.

Similar to the last one was cutting pork cutlets from boneless pork sirloin. Again, a bit higher of a cost, but zero trim and a nicer final product. I was cutting these off the shoulder trim before sausage making which produced a tougher, fattier and uglier cutlet. Sure I have a bit more pork trim, but that leads me to my next increase

As soon as I get my new sausage horn adapter for my grinder, we'll go from bulk sausage at as little as 5% GM to linked bratwurst, etc. at whopping 78% GM. Cha-Ching.

And I have another little trick up my sleeve that I'm mulling over that I will comment on once I have the logistics figures out.

New Case of BSE discovered in the US: NCF. as big of hypocrites as ever

24.6.05
the USDA announced today that another case of BSE has been discovered in the USA. Mind you, we still have a ban in place against Canadian Beef, despite their ability to prove their own competance in preventing cases of BSE which is driving the majority of Canadian beef ranchers into insolvency.

The NCF can say time and time again that our beef is safe and that BSE pozes no threat to our food supply, but as it stands, if the US is only testing 375,000 head of targeted cattle per year, then we're just touching the tip of the iceberg. The testing practices and the preventative measures need to be stepped up, otherwise beef prices will continue to soar for the consumer and small business.

Meat Profit Margins

8.6.05
I was pouring over some figures, both sales and cost and started finding my profit margins on various items in my dept. I figured that they would be pretty decent since my Price Points are rather high, and, even though meat costs are sky high, my costs don't seem that high. But as I said in my last post, I'm having a hard time selling entire loins, and am having to over trim to make my meat look decently case ready, thus significantly reducing my salable yield (this is the result of your beginning loin weight minus your trim weight. Trim means only fat/gristle/meat that goes into the bone barrel. You count ground meats into your yield). So instead of 20% profit margin, I'm making as little as 5% at times, and regularly am around 10%.

And these numbers are GROSS. Net, I'm sure a 5% PM is actually like zero profit after labor and supplies, and freight.

I've come up with a few ideas on how to significantly raise my PM's as much as 20% across the board and raise my sales at least 34% and my profits at least 17%. And this is just on three items, and assuming no increase in sales. Yeouch, that's good. I'll wait to share these ideas until after I speak with my owner, but obviously no one where I work has any idea how retail works nor how to grow a business.

3.6.05
also, stephen malkmus on fantasy sports via oddjack

A message to the people of Earth…

No matter how hard you try, you’ll never be Bettie Page or Mike Ness unless you already are them, so please, stop trying.

Thanks,
The Management

-via My Big Black Cock

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Today was fine. I cut like a madman at work since the weekend is gonna be nice and I'm gonna be in Oklahoma. I can't figure the little town I work in out at all. I'll sell nothing buy porksteaks for two weeks and then suddenly, they won't move. Same thing with some of my steaks. I'll sell half a strip loin in one afternoon, and then sell four steaks over the next week and a half. It's really frustrating not to be able to really gauge my sales potential.

I had a stuffy yuppie who obviously commutes to the city and lives in town ask me about T-Bones very annoyed. "You ever gonna cut Tbones again?" Well, I'm a shortloin man myself. You tell me I can have one type of steak for the rest of my life, and I'm picking the third Porterhouse in on the shortloin. But if I can't move a fucking striploin (KC/NY strip) in two weeks, there's no way in hell the poor boogans are going to be snatching up tbones and porterhouses at the price I'm being charged. If you want to complain, contact the Cattleman's Assoc., since they're artificially inflating beef prices through successful lobbying and lawsuits of continued banning of Canadian Beef. He didn't like the answer, but that's too bad, since it's the straight truth.

Got my haircut. Gonna go and finish altering my favorite pair of slacks in a moment so's I can wear them to the wedding (none of my pants fit now that I've shed 30 pounds. I have found that it's not to difficult to take in the waist one size though).

1.6.05
Ten Most "Harmful" Books according to conservatives via suicidegirls

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The Holiday weekend was rather tame. I worked all four days of it, and only left myself the afternoon to go fishing with the Dudes. We didn't catch anything. I did manage to take home a shit ton of bug bites. And just let me clue you all in, pond fishing and not drinking beer is Boring.

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This weekend we're going to Norman, OK for my cousin's wedding. It should b pretty cool. It's at the Fred Jones Museum of Art.

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My finger isn't healing so well, but it's not infected or anything terrible. I just think I struck a nerve because I still can't feel the tip of it, and any slight jarring of it sends pain up to my shoulder. Yeouch.