Tariffs, inflation and…Clean first…

Tariffs, inflation and…Adjusting your prices

Okay so we’re not importers who’re directly impacted by tariff costs. But the cost of doing business has probably increased since you last adjusted your prices. The result has almost certainly been real erosion of your bottom line.

Over the last couple of years we’ve seen all manner of our customers increase their prices to cover higher costs. The most dramatic being those big menu increases our foodservice customer have had to enact – and that BTW are often negatively affecting their customer counts.

The combination of that volume loss and the feeling that inflation is moderating means passing price increases to them might meet with more resistance than would have been the case last year. And yet your profitability has shrunk and probably needs to be addressed.

So why not take a flexible approach? First, increase the pricing you use for any new business you’re pursuing. Then consider product changes in your existing accounts. That might mean moving to a product that has a better margin – but that can hold – or even reduce their costs. Or perhaps it’s shifting them to a cheaper product that you typically sell for $X but bumping it 5%.

The avenues available to improve your bottom lines can be a combination of a lot of differing approaches. And skillfully blending those varying tools might just deliver a better bottom line and customers who’re still content and happy.

Clean first…Sanitize second

When most think of sanitized surfaces – whether it’s a piece of flatware, a kitchen floor, that food prep counter, or even a hospital operating suite, we immediately focus on the sanitizer or disinfectant used. And while it’s crucial to sanitizing, that’s not where that outcome begins.

Bacteria can only survive if there are three elements present. First it needs nutrition to feed it so that it can multiply. Then it needs moisture to hydrate it and lastly it requires a temperature that can sustain it. While number two and three may not be in our control, removal of a food source is.

That’s why cleaning surfaces thoroughly and removing all of the organic material on them is critical. In the absence of achieving that, the effectiveness of any disinfectant will be limited. That’s true because even though the surface may be sanitized. Importantly that can include the surface of the unremoved soil and the microbes living under it can survive and multiply.

Just as thorough washing of our hands can go a long way to limiting the spread and multiplication of bacteria, achieving a really clean surface is likewise the first step to assuring a surface that’s free of both pathogenic and even the relatively benign microbes we want to control.