Restaurant Chain saves $1.1M with Alsco Uniforms

Alsco Uniforms

August 30, 2024

Summary

A publicly traded national chain of fast-casual restaurants, renowned for its commitment to high-quality ingredients and eco-friendly practices, encountered significant challenges due to the decentralized purchasing of facility service items. Operating over 700 locations across 38 states, the chain is dedicated to upholding a strong brand image focused on environmental sustainability, health, and safety. To address these challenges, the restaurant chain adopted an Alsco Uniforms program, which streamlined their operations and led to an impressive 87% annual cost savings.

Challenges

With each of the 700+ restaurants making individual purchases, the company faced challenges with uncontrolled spending and inefficiencies in areas outside their core expertise—food procurement.

Furthermore, the company needed to ensure that its facility service practices were in harmony with its brand values, which prioritized environmental responsibility, health, and safety.

This decentralized approach resulted in the following issues:

High acquisition costs due to lack of volume pricing.
Inefficient commodity costs from non-standardized products.
Difficulty in value analysis because of disparate purchasing decisions.
Lack of strategic market knowledge affecting cost management.
Decreased profitability from redundant and inconsistent purchasing activities.
Complications in the opening process for new restaurants.

This involved:

Using high-quality, sustainably sourced ingredients.
Implementing a “green” housekeeping policy.
Committing to non-toxic cleaning practices.
Reducing energy consumption and water usage.
Aggressively recycling in-store waste.

Solution: Alsco Uniforms National Accounts Team

The chain’s Chicago location was nearing contract renewal for mops, mats, aprons, and other facility service items with a local vendor. A store manager reached out to an Alsco Uniforms representative for a competitive assessment, which led to the involvement of the Alsco Uniforms National Accounts team. The goal was to address the chain’s differentiation objectives and streamline their facility services.

The Alsco Uniforms Proposal

Following an initial local meeting, the Alsco Uniforms National Accounts team visited the company’s corporate headquarters and developed a comprehensive proposal that included:

Phasing out the multiple supplier base to leverage volume pricing.
Supporting the chain’s “green” strategy with products/services aligned with LEEDS credits.
Leveraging brand attributes to enhance corporate identity.
Establishing oversight of purchasing policies and procedures to ensure consistency.
Allowing local managers to focus on core competencies by centralizing purchasing.
Centralizing access to spending and inventory data for better financial control.
Eliminating redundant purchasing activities to increase efficiency.

These specific proposal points were particularly attractive because:

Accounted for planned future growth to 1,000 stores.
No “traps” or “contract creep” in the servicing contract.
Time-saving Electronic Data Interchange (EDI).
Water conservation and landfill refuse reduction.
Consistent product and service packages across all locations.

Impact

Before partnering with Alsco Uniforms, the chain’s restaurants purchased and discarded four wet mops per week, costing $30/week per location. This practice totaled a projected $1,560,000 annually across 1,000 locations.

With Alsco Uniforms reusable microfiber mop rental service, the chain now receives professionally laundered microfiber mops weekly, reducing costs to $4/week per location. This change projected annual savings of $1,352,000, calculated as follows:

Previous cost: $30/week x 1,000 locations = $1,560,000/year.
Annual savings: $1,352,000.

New cost: $4/week x 1,000 locations = $208,000/year.
That’s an 87% savings

Alsco Uniforms microfiber mop rental service aligns with the chain’s “green” objectives, reducing waste and supporting sustainable practices. Additionally, Alsco Uniforms offers electronic billing, projected to save the company over 2,500 hours of labor per year through paperless invoicing.

Conclusion

By partnering with Alsco Uniforms, the national fast-casual restaurant chain successfully centralized its facility service purchases, aligning its operations with its environmental and brand values, and realizing substantial cost savings. Alsco Uniforms comprehensive solution not only streamlined the chain’s procurement process but also supported its growth and sustainability goals, demonstrating the significant impact of strategic facility management in achieving business efficiency and profitability.