I had a large collection of cutting tests I did in spreadsheet format.  I had 3 or 4 cutting methods for each sub-primal, each with data built from about a half dozen of each so as to get good reliable values for each method of cutting each sub-primal. 

That way I could punch in the week's prices and determine the best way to merchandise for the week and what to push since messing with the prices could get you fired.  Actually I still have them but they are not in MS Excel but SuperCalc which was the leading spreadsheet back in the day and runs on PCs using the CP/M operating system.  I still have my old Osborne-1 and it still powers up but it does not BOOT up.  I'd have to do some work on it to bring it back to life.

Coalcracker wrote:

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Anybody out there doing cutting test or do we leave that up to somebody else??

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Sounds like you been around the block so to speak on cutting test. Many of the chains usually dictate from test taken with corporates guidelines and there isn't much to do at dept. level. Another factor is time of course. That all being said lets look at some of the nooks and cranies of why we should take cutting test on a regular bases no matter who's feeding us the numbers.

1)  You will never get accurate information from doing just one test on the targeted piece of meat.  At the packing house level cutting test are done daily and on different beef types. The information collected become so finite that the carcass break sheets become a very serious documents to what we pay for live cattle. .

2) When taking test don't become too detailed with the "credits". For instance if you cut and merchandise don't get too detailed because many cutters make this mistake. They include high priced items that don't sell at the same speed as the main cuts being merchandised and at a much less tonnage level.  If you are going to credit fajita meat against cutting test on a bottom round make sure its an item that will move and not end up in ground beef.

3) Technically every time you receive meat from a different supplier you should create cutting test on the new supplier. Then you can create a log for yourself  so all the cutters can refer to it. Actually retail cutting test should be a "team effort" so all can participate and understand.

4) At the meat management school where I worked before we began any test we would establish the gross weight first then the net weight second. The difference is the shrink or some call it purge. Remember  you paid for that. As an example we weigh a bottom round flat in the bag first. Open up the bag drain out the purge then pat the cut of beef dry with a paper towel. Now you start your test from there. So that means you will have to cutting losses, a purge loss then your cutting loss after the cut is merchandised.. This is very important to do because these losses are genuine losses and you can't run from them. In the packing house they weighed floor scrapings before they went to the rendering dept. After each shift and line by line. You have floor losses as well and it is a part of the overall cutting losses.

5) Make sure you lean up the trim on a cutting test  to your least expensive trim generally 73/27% lean. Even if the trim looks leaner only credit the price of 73/27 not ground chuck, ground round ect back against the cut being tested. If you keep your trim valued at the lowest ground beef price you test will be more meaningful and consistent. And if some trim ends up in a leaner grind and a higher prices well guess what, it will help pay for the cutting losses.

6) Make comparison test on weather buying chuck rolls for your store is better than buying 2 piece boneless chucks or vice versa.

7) If there is a change in meat cost you should re-test. Or at least run the new numbers against the cutting test you have on file. 

8) If  you hire a new  full time meat cutter  testing  should be done on him. Will he meet the standards that you have all ready created with your library of cutting test. If he is a lefty you want to see the end results. (Just an example).

9) Actual this step is similar to number 8 in as much as all cutters should be evaluated every so often to see if they are meeting the departments standards that were set with cutting test.

10) Cutting test are an essential tool especially if you are buying your own meat. One vendor could be offering lower prices and you may jump for a bargain. But unless you now what his product is going to yield you won't be making a accurate decision. You need cutting test.  

11) If top management decides to change the merchandising plan you better understand what that impact is going to be on gross profits  and the only way you can do that is with cutting test.

12) In our business it is said that if you can identify the profit-drain it's 90% of the solution. That being said if you  don't do accurate cutting test or understand gross profit  you can never find out where "the monetary black holes" are in your operations. You may be happy with a 25% gross profit when in reality it should have been 29%.

Now that's what I'm talking about. Thanks Leon for sharing that with all. Your example is of so much importance. Meat managers everywhere should heed your example. When any company holds the 'meat department" manager responsible for G.P. then that man needs to know the numbers. Now I'm not saying he has  to go against company policy but he needs to check the numbers just like Leon did. Remember, there is a big difference in doing cutting test at a desk vs. 'the block".

ChefLazar5 wrote:

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Hi, we do cutting tests and they are important..............

 

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 We don't do cutting tests. I guess that's why we're supposedly not making enough money. There are several things that are weird. We break our own lamb. No extra parts brought in. We have legs bone in or boneless. The boneless are $1.00 more per pound, but cheaper in the end because the bones weigh a lot. Same with turkey breasts bone in and boneless. Boneless are cheaper (final price). Lots of labor too. Why hasn't anyone (who matters) figured that out?

Coalcracker you make some great points and are a veritable fountain of knowledge so I wanted to comment/respond to each of them  now that I have the time. See below. 

Coalcracker wrote:

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Sounds like you been around the block so to speak on cutting test. Many of the chains usually dictate from test taken with corporates guidelines and there isn't much to do at dept. level. Another factor is time of course. That all being said lets look at some of the nooks and cranies of why we should take cutting test on a regular bases no matter who's feeding us the numbers.

1)  You will never get accurate information from doing just one test on the targeted piece of meat.  At the packing house level cutting test are done daily and on different beef types. The information collected become so finite that the carcass break sheets become a very serious documents to what we pay for live cattle. .

I constantly grew my library of cutting tests but admittedly it was difficult to make the time. What really helped were the new Hobart scales we got that had a cutting test function. That allowed me to capture the cutting tests without slowing production too much, then I could transfer the data to my computer where my cutting test library was. 

2) When taking test don't become too detailed with the "credits". For instance if you cut and merchandise don't get too detailed because many cutters make this mistake. They include high priced items that don't sell at the same speed as the main cuts being merchandised and at a much less tonnage level.  If you are going to credit fajita meat against cutting test on a bottom round make sure its an item that will move and not end up in ground beef.

Well this is why I did my cutting tests using several cutting methods.  Obviously if you have top round London Broils on sale for $1.79/lb. you are not going to merchandise that many as brasciole, stir-fry, and minute steak but the tests on this method showed you what you wanted to push as much as possible with additional displays and signing. I also priced trim as the least expensive ground beef even though we'd push as many whole insides as possible into the ground round, when London Broils were on-sale.

3) Technically every time you receive meat from a different supplier you should create cutting test on the new supplier. Then you can create a log for yourself  so all the cutters can refer to it. Actually retail cutting test should be a "team effort" so all can participate and understand.

I had no choice in the vendor. It all came in from our Perishable Distribution Center, but we did do weekly "show and tells" with the cutters on the Saturday prior to the sale starting to emphasize what were the most profitable cuts to push next week.

4) At the meat management school where I worked before we began any test we would establish the gross weight first then the net weight second. The difference is the shrink or some call it purge. Remember  you paid for that. As an example we weigh a bottom round flat in the bag first. Open up the bag drain out the purge then pat the cut of beef dry with a paper towel. Now you start your test from there. So that means you will have to cutting losses, a purge loss then your cutting loss after the cut is merchandised.. This is very important to do because these losses are genuine losses and you can't run from them. In the packing house they weighed floor scrapings before they went to the rendering dept. After each shift and line by line. You have floor losses as well and it is a part of the overall cutting losses.

We did not have much control in that. Everything came in billed at retail yield from our PDC.  Our goal was to beat it. In addition to merchandising we would try our best to go into a sale "light" on inventory that came in prior to the sale at regular price, then do a buy in and come out heavy on that item.  Company policy was we could not buy in more than a 3 day supply but we would get creative. Keeping the example of Insides I would try to carry out a few pallets, 60-80 boxes, then use them for everything I could, even substituting for coarse ground beef when the sale retail of the Insides was low enough.  Beating the system...

5) Make sure you lean up the trim on a cutting test  to your least expensive trim generally 73/27% lean. Even if the trim looks leaner only credit the price of 73/27 not ground chuck, ground round ect back against the cut being tested. If you keep your trim valued at the lowest ground beef price you test will be more meaningful and consistent. And if some trim ends up in a leaner grind and a higher prices well guess what, it will help pay for the cutting losses.

Again we leaned the trim for the test but only valued it at the price of our least expensive ground beef, 80% lean.

6) Make comparison test on weather buying chuck rolls for your store is better than buying 2 piece boneless chucks or vice versa.

We just had to supplement with chuck rolls when boneless chuck roasts were on sale but obviously 3-way boneless chucks were more profitable to the extent we could merchandise the clods and rag bags. When chucks were not on sale I only used chuck rolls to get the case set up first thing in the morning, then it was 3 way chucks thereafter, mostly bone in.

7) If there is a change in meat cost you should re-test. Or at least run the new numbers against the cutting test you have on file. 

Did that almost weekly against existing tests when retail pricing changed.  

8) If  you hire a new  full time meat cutter  testing  should be done on him. Will he meet the standards that you have all ready created with your library of cutting test. If he is a lefty you want to see the end results. (Just an example).

Lefty??? I resemble that remark! The best cutters I ever had were lefties. I'm a lefty and I wasn't one of them! my strength was in my head. Seriously though I never had the time to test individual cutters with cutting tests. The best I could do was eyeball their work, which I think was sufficient.

9) Actual this step is similar to number 8 in as much as all cutters should be evaluated every so often to see if they are meeting the departments standards that were set with cutting test.

Sure wish I had the time!

10) Cutting test are an essential tool especially if you are buying your own meat. One vendor could be offering lower prices and you may jump for a bargain. But unless you now what his product is going to yield you won't be making a accurate decision. You need cutting test.  

11) If top management decides to change the merchandising plan you better understand what that impact is going to be on gross profits  and the only way you can do that is with cutting test.

I absolutely agree.  At least I had good data to send to the district office to show my retail yields against theirs and often I would force them to issue credits to improve my shrink.  The guys who didn't do this, got nothing.

12) In our business it is said that if you can identify the profit-drain it's 90% of the solution. That being said if you  don't do accurate cutting test or understand gross profit  you can never find out where "the monetary black holes" are in your operations. You may be happy with a 25% gross profit when in reality it should have been 29%.

This is SUCH a big and profound statement that I just don't have the time to type on it, but you are spot on.

 

Jim

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Coalcracker, see my responses below. (I guess I have too much time on my hands.)

Coalcracker wrote:

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Jim Henry it seems we graduated from the same school. However I was lucky enough to get a degree. I have a ( BSPHD ) and I earned it. "Bull **** piled hit deep".  LOL> Remember now I have been sitting on the side lines for 10 years but you could have nocked me over with that scale you did cutting test with. Awesome. Sound like you had some good teachers along the way. I don't know if you are retired or not but this feedback you gave is excellent.

You know, J.H. when you spend 40 some years in a career you learn so much. In the beginning I used the shotgun approach to everything I did. I never took any prisoners and get bulling my self forward and upward. I don't recommend that to everybody. You really have to be driven. But I could say with certainty that there are only a few things to make an average cutter into a stellar cutter and these things are so simple they will scare the heck out of most people.

I AM retired, at least from the retail meat trade, that I worked in from 1968 to 1996. I think I was the only manager that used the advanced functions of those scales which if I remember correctly were Hobart 5000s. But then, aside from the trade, I had a degree in electrical engineering and a network consulting business on the side so I was very open to using technology to help myself.   

1) You need to some how realize that you get your paycheck from  (example) Safeway but you really work for the customers. Once a cutter can get their brains around that je will perform well and enjoy  work. I think that some guys think that the president of Safeway and his wife sits at their kitchen table and write the checks out to the cutters. LOL> That check they receive only comes from one source (your customers).

The very first independent chain I worked for had "Satisfied customers pay your salary" printed on every paycheck which I think was a good thing.  Later on, at the big chain, when I'd hear my cutters bitch about the company or the union, I would tell them, you don't have to be loyal to your union or the company, but you better have the brains to be loyal to your paycheck, with all that implies.

2) Don't bring your personal problems to work, just like you shouldn't  bring your work problems home. Be as professional as you can, if who ever you work with wants to act like a clown on the job, don't you follow along. Don't be pessimistic and stop worrying  about what the other guy makes. Be satisfied with what you get and if you don't like it, be a man and move along. Stop your bitching.

3) You mention you wish you had more time and you are absolutely correct. However, there are some things we must make time for. Like maintaining good cutting records, clear and concise so when you are not around someone else can understand them. Look at attorneys. Before they try a case they go back to the law books to see if any similar cases where fought and argued. Its a guide a road map just like cutting test.

Yes. Documentation is everything. I was a thorn in the side for many store managers and my meat product manager, but they didn't mess with me because I had the numbers and documentation to back it up. I always stuck up for my crew with management. I was consistently in the top 5 of our 150 store chain. My strategy was to make it less painful to appease me than not. It worked well.

4) We need to make time to check our receiving weights. Now you say who the heck can do that. Well how about if I tell you it is the quickest way to add points to your gross with little labor. I can't tell you how many times we found weight discrepancies when I work as a field supervisor. We use to have seminars on that subject. Digital scales make mistakes and who operates the scales? When I worked for a large meat packer who was totally digital we got a call from a major chain in the D.C. area. They found a slight rounding problem and it was found in their warehouse. So I got sent in there, the box weights were off .25. Not much you say but on 10 loads of boxed beef it was a big chunk of money. You don't have to check every single box of meat, poultry or seafood you receive but you can do spot checks and make a schedule for doing it. Do it on the most expensive items first. Like crab legs, or shrimp or expensive fish cuts, tenderloins, rib eyes and so forth.Don't be afraid to take a box of rib eyes removed them and weigh them and compare your scale weight with the box weight.

You know its a funny thing. We get weight checked at the store level by state and government agencies. But no body is checking the weights of what we receive. This is so very important. Remember your company knows what the billed weights are and they know what is going out the door. Its up to you to find out how accurate their numbers are in between.

As I stated in a different post, this made a real difference when I worked for independents, not so much when working for the big chain. What made the difference for the latter were my cutting tests which gained me many retail yield adjustments. I had the documentation. The company did not. 

5) Now this is a tough one but with that scale you talked about maybe it can be done. All department mangers know about dollars per man hour but does anybody care about pound per man hour? You say but we don't get measured on it. Yep that's right because some lame-brain desk rider thought they can make them selves look good by reducing labor in the meat department. This is why so many chains get into trouble. Lets look at it for minute. Just take a month any month and try to find out what going out the door in pounds then compare the pounds per man hour against the dollars per man hour and see weather or not you are getting screwed on labor hours.

Ok lets use the "kiss" principle. You sold a 1000 lbs of whole body fryers at 1.00 per pound you get $1000 dollars towards you labor hours.

Your body Joe at store number 123 sells 1000 lbs of bones chuck at $4 bucks a pound. He gets $4000 dollars towards his labor hours.

Now maybe I'm missing something because I never worked under dollars per man hour but J.H. can you explain how that works to an old timer.

My fingers feel like I boned out 50 arm chucks on sale so I will say so long for tonight.

I used the hell out of those scales as I could get continuous reports including $/man-hour. (I had to manually add the hours.) One of the best things I did (in my opinion) was report out the scale activity 24/7. Our stores were open 24/7 and until a contract change, if the store was open, a meatcutter had to be on-duty. After that changed, I noticed that someone was weighing and pricing items at 3 or 4 in the morning when the department was un-manned. Things like strip steaks and Italian style veal cutlets for 99 cents/pound! I took that to management and they acted like I was crazy. I insisted they check the security videos and guess what? Somehow they had mysteriously been erased. At that point I insisted on and raised hell that padlocks be installed on every entrance to the cutting room and meat cooler. The problem stopped. No one was ever caught but at least we plugged a shrink leak. The lesson is, don't resist technology, use it to your advantage.

 

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