national · vendor
Seasonal produce swings are hitting menus and food costs hard
Original headline: “Fresh ideas: How restaurants can overcome the challenge of seasonal produce”
Why this matters
Chili peppers, tomatoes, and other produce shift in price, quality, and availability by season, region, and growing conditions. For indie operators, that means the dish cost you locked in last quarter may not reflect what you are paying at the back door today. When your Sysco or US Foods invoice lands with a different line-item price than the one you negotiated, the gap goes straight to food cost unless you catch it. Most operators absorb the drift quietly because they never compare the PO price to the invoice price.
What to do
Pull your last four weeks of produce invoices and compare the per-unit price on each line to your original contract or quoted price.
Reveal Newsroom · Auto-published from restaurant-dive →
Published Thu, 09 Jul 2026 13:08:17 GMT
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