Kaldi’s Coffee, operating 14 locations in St. Louis and Atlanta, encountered significant challenges in maintaining recipe consistency, accurate costing, and effective training. Previously, the company relied on Excel spreadsheets for costing data and email-based recipe books. This approach often resulted in inconsistencies, particularly with batch sizes, and errors from handwritten annotations.
They needed a solution to reduce the time spent analyzing menu data, improve consistency across locations, and find an easy way to compare Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) with sales metrics. Cannon Dowell, the POS and IT Administrator at Kaldi's Coffee, led the effort to integrate meez and address these issues.
By integrating meez, Kaldi's Coffee has significantly reduced the time spent analyzing menu data. The managing team can now focus more on strategic decisions rather than getting bogged down in data management. This streamlined approach allows for quicker adjustments to recipes and cost management, enhancing overall operational efficiency.
“When you start expanding, describing something isn't going to be the same. Having a visual aid through meez has been really helping us a lot. Before we would have physical recipe books and you'd see markings and annotations everywhere. Now our team can go in and change the batch on the recipe.”
With meez, recipe management has become consistent across all locations. This consistency has led to a notable improvement in the quality and uniformity of Kaldi's recipes. The ability to standardize batch sizes and ensure all locations are following the same guidelines has minimized variations and errors, ensuring customers receive the same high-quality products regardless of the location they visit.
“We use meez for batch adjustments, so team members can easily modify recipes for different yields. This helps streamline our processes and provides a central hub for recipes, which we previously stored scattered across Google Drive.”
meez has empowered the leadership team to update recipes and make necessary changes with ease. This has ensured that costing remains accurate and up-to-date. The system's efficiency in managing and updating cost data has eliminated the errors associated with manual data entry and outdated spreadsheets, providing a reliable foundation for financial management.
“For costing, we review it in meez almost weekly at the leadership level. We are working on strategies to handle fluctuations in ingredient prices and to be more proactive in our costing approach.”
The quick access to sales percentages and Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) data provided by meez has been a game changer for Kaldi's Coffee. The ability to view and analyze this information in real-time has enabled the team to make informed decisions swiftly.
This data-driven approach supports better financial planning and menu adjustments, contributing to the company's profitability and operational success.
“We use meez to assess our theoretical goals and cost things out. For example, we recently discussed whether we should cost out our recipes with paper products. We previously used cutlery kits, which cost around 80 cents, whereas providing just a fork and napkins costs only 19 cents. By adding a paper product setup in our menu in meez, it allows us to see how these changes affect our operations.”
meez has fostered a sense of ownership and empowerment among the Kaldi's Coffee team. By providing access to recipes and operational data at various levels, every team member can take responsibility for their role in maintaining consistency and quality.
With meez, there’s ownership everywhere. Everyone has the access they need at their level. This widespread access has streamlined workflows and enhanced accountability, leading to a more cohesive and efficient team.
“Our team includes a line cook, an expo person, and a prep cook. They follow a recipe book in meez and receive guidance from their kitchen manager. Concerns about who makes edits or changes to batch sizes are managed by maintaining control at the leadership level. While team members can view recipes and make necessary adjustments, critical changes are handled by leadership to ensure accuracy and consistency.”
Kaldi’s Coffee has achieved a new level of operational excellence and efficiency thanks to meez. The ability to manage recipes consistently across all locations, make data-driven financial decisions, and reduce waste has positively impacted the company’s bottom line. Additionally, the empowerment and ownership experienced by the team members have streamlined workflows and increased accountability.
As Kaldi’s Coffee continues to grow and evolve, the foundation set by integrating meez will support sustained operational excellence and scalability. The positive business impact, highlighted by accurate costing and improved team efficiency, underscores the value of Meez in driving the coffee company's success.
"We are now focusing on fully integrating meez across all our locations. Its intuitive user interface greatly benefits our team, providing a simple and effective solution that is crucial for productivity and training, especially given the high turnover rates we experience.”
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