What is a Vendor Item Catalog in the Restaurant Operations?

A vendor item catalog is a database that contains all of the food products that a restaurant has purchased from its vendors. This list also contains each item's name, SKU number, cost, pack size, and vendor data. It's also used as an ordering database.

A restaurant will interact with over a hundred vendors for all of its items daily. Without a proper catalog, orders get mixed up easily, and ordering occurs inefficiently. A staff member may order a different product than what they thought they were ordering, or the wrong number or package size of the product.

Each part in the catalog is related to one supplier, and very frequently it's directly related to the restaurant's inventory system, so that when parts are delivered, they can be accounted for correctly. This also enables using the same ingredients all the time. This is extremely important to maintain food quality and cost.

In the U.S. System, proper management of the vendor catalog will lead to increased purchasing efficiency and closer relationships with suppliers. It also greatly helps to compare purchasing prices, monitor the cost variations, control the budget, etc.

Common problems that arise when there isn't a vendor item catalog are wrong orders, wrong items, inconsistent prices, and missing inventory counts. These problems can eventually lead to higher food costs and inefficiency.

One way to minimize these problems is to:

• Keep the catalog current,
• remove inactive items,
• standardize names (i.e., Can of cola vs. Can of pop)
• and to integrate with your POS or inventory system.