Summer season is in full swing, we’re excited for outdoor dining and operators who just threw open their doors for the season – here’s to a profitable summer! 

As we pass the six-month point for The Board, I wanted to sincerely thank you for all the feedback, both positive and constructive. I was speaking to a colleague in a different industry and they were shocked this email is not sent from a noreply@ address. Truly I value each and every reply to help make The Board a newsletter you will tell your work friends about.

Speaking of industry friends, our limited-time $600 referral bonus will be down a hundred bucks to $500 soon. If you want to pocket some cash (or make a very generous donation) fill out this form to get started.

Did you go to the NRA show? We had a fantastic time meeting clients as well as new faces. We did have sore feet, though. Scroll down to see the highlight reel version from our partners over at SpotOn.

Know someone who would like to join our 45,000+ subscribers? Forward to a friend or send them this link.

- Tracy & the MarginEdge team

MONTHLY SALES METRICS & UPDATE

By segment, Fast Casual narrowly beat out Full Service, with 3% sales growth, and Full Service at 1% compared to May 2022's numbers. Overall sales ended at 1%. Both Mother's Day and Memorial Day Weekend saw big sales spikes, which we always love to see starting the summer months. 

Eggs and chicken drumsticks the Droppers list, so we can finally solve that age-old question of which comes first. And soft shell crab season started with a bang, landing at the top of our Movers list with a 107% price increase compared to April 2023 prices

Dig in to the full report.

ITEM TO WATCH

Salmon

Mind-boggling discovery uncovered (at least for me) this month, there’s a NASDAQ Salmon Index! I get tech indexes and oil price charts, but salmon is a new one. It’s specific for Norwegian salmon, so figured it made sense to look at salmon prices over the last year or so.

For proteins like salmon, even a small price change can impact your profitability per plate. Based on our data, prices a year ago were quite a bit lower than they were as of June 1. Diving in a little more, we see clients who purchase Sockeye salmon are paying about 15% more than they were last month. With the “Summer of Sockeye” kicking off and predicted to be in the top five seasons, prices at least for this wild-caught species will decrease.

We’ll be keeping an eye on new regulations regarding salmon fishing off the coasts of California and Oregon and a government task force to study declining salmon populations in Alaska

Smokecraft | Arlington, VA

ASK [me] ANYTHING

Taking inventory is super overwhelming, help!

We hear you, Ben, you are definitely not the only one who has asked this question or expressed frustration at how tedious inventory management tasks can be. 

Our go-to advice from our team of former operators: carve out a tiny bit of time to inventory your top five most expensive items (most likely those proteins) before you place the weekly order. The benefit of doing this before ordering is you essentially eliminate the possibility of over or under-ordering those items, preventing your food cost from increasing, since both mistakes will add up. If you know your weekly or daily pars for those items already, then it's a simple par minus on-hand amount equation to figure out order amounts. Dive into our inventory management blog post to learn more.

Ask [me] anything!
Really. Each month we’ll take a look at the questions we get and answer one here. Have a question about our product, accounting or restaurant operations in general? Email me or message us on our social media channels.

Bill-E's | Fairhope, AL

THE ECONOMY

Order Inflation Up 

It wasn’t Friday the 13th, thank goodness, but last week's CPI data showed inflation "coming back down to Earth," good news! Consumers are still feeling some pressure at the checkout anecdotally despite the very slight 0.1% increase. Food away from home is still on the rise, 0.5% up from the previous month and up 8.3% year-over-year.

Our data shows May’s overall sales ending the month at 1% above last year, moving up ever so slightly (we’ll take it!). Seasonal hiring for the summer is predicted to be over half a million employees by the National Restaurant Association, the highest since 2017. The government weather wizards at NOAA say this summer is going to be a scorcher so get your blenders ready for more frozen drinks!