Labor Requirements and Operating Costs in Fast-Food Restaurants

Excerpts from the report: The increase in demand for food away from home has engendered an increase in the number of food service businesses. This growth trend, along with increased costs for wages, food, and equipment, coupled with shortages of qualified personnel in the labor force, has required management to assign top priority to increasing labor and facility efficiency. These increased costs concern not only the food service industry, but also consumers, wholesalers, and producers. Increased marketing costs, wherever they occur in the distribution channel between the farm gate and the dinner table, reflect lower returns to growers and processors and higher prices to consumers. This report is part of a broad program of the Agricultural Marketing Research Institute, Agricultural Research Service, aimed at increasing the efficiency of the marketing system. This publication was designed to provide managers of fast-food restaurants with basic operating data to enable them to determine the costs and man-hours required for a specified volume of menu items. Potential savings through improving current methods were developed from operating statements of the restaurants that participated in this research.