commissary INSIDER - August 2017 - 10

to software like CostGuard to streamline
their production management.

Tech:

Production
management software
By Andy Nelson

he complexities of running a food
commissary or central kitchen can
be daunting - and expensive.

Ordering too much of an ingredient here,
too little there, may not make much of an
impact on the bottom line on a given day.
But multiple those discrepancies by 7, 30
or 365, and it becomes clear that being
organized and detail-oriented is essential
to business success. Fortunately for operators, suppliers of production management and other software can do much of
the job for them.
When Bronxville, New York-based AtYour-Service Software Inc. launched its
CostGuard food costing software, the
company knew that restaurants and
other foodservice operations would be a
strong target audience for their product.
Grocery stores and the commissaries
that supply their in-store departments
weren't front and center, says Matthew
Starobin, the company's CEO. That
changed quickly, though, when At-YourService landed a contract with a retail
chain in the Western United States.
"Stores are the business we didn't anticipate when we started out," he says.
"But we did such a good job, they really
started to come our way. Now most of

our customers who use it are stores. It
could be as simple as sushi, soups, graband-go or 'I need to make 100 sandwiches today.'"
CostGuard provides a full range of production management and other services,
including recipe costing, menu engineering, inventory control, nutrition and
sales management.
CostGuard instantly costs and recalculates recipes and menus, suggesting selling prices based on global and category
targets. With the software's engineering
reports identifying "winners and losers,"
Starobin says, companies can more easily maximize sales. CostGuard also keeps
a close eye on shrinkage, via alerts that
show usage and shrinkage sorted by cost.
Commissary business, meanwhile, is
a category where At-Your-Service has
seen strong growth more recently,
Starobin says.
"Five years ago we didn't have commissaries as an option - now it's on our
website," he says. "It feels like that business is really growing."

"I was just out in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where getting labor is next to impossible," he says. "They're paying dishwashers $18 an hour. Businesses need to
mechanize wherever they can to reduce
manpower requirements."
And it's by no means limited to big companies, Starobin says. Expanding operations to just three to five units is enough
to convince many businesses of the benefits of using commissaries, he says. And
it's not a hard sell to get commissaries to
use CostGuard.
"If they're calling us, they're in trouble,"
he says. "The more pain they have, the
more likely they are to buy our software.
These operators know the benefits. They
do such big, big numbers, they can get
into huge dollar amounts."
One trend in the use of software for
production management and other uses
among retailers and commissaries,
Starobin says, is a greater emphasis on
systems integration.
"Even for users who aren't too technically literate, what they're very sensitive
about and aware of is the efficiency of
systems integration," he says. "They get
that when they're doing labeling, or nutrition, pricing recipes over here, taking
orders over there, that they have a mishmash of all these systems. They know
how much time it takes, and they're getting wise to it."
Software like CostGuard helps retailers
and commissaries from "getting into a

Labor costs are one of the main reasons
more stores are outsourcing work to
commissaries, Starobin says. And that
extra business makes commissaries turn

"Stores are the business we didn't anticipate when we started
out," he says. "But we did such a good job, they really started to
come our way. Now most of our customers who use it are stores.
It could be as simple as sushi, soups, grab-and-go or 'I need to
make 100 sandwiches today.'"
Matthew Starobin

10 * AUGUST 2017

PHOTO: AT-YOUR-SERVICE SOFTWARE

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