Wivenhoe House Hotel
Providing fresh solutions
Wivenhoe House Hotel (WHH) is one of the country’s finest grade II listed buildings dating from the mid-18 th century with a fascinating history including being painted by John Constable. In 2012 the
hotel re-opened as a 4* country house hotel following a complete and extensive refurbishment.
WHH uniquely shares its operations with the Edge Hotel School, a first in the UK. This partnership
sees degree students work alongside WHH highly skilled team of hospitality professionals to gain
firsthand experience in the industry. WHH also includes main house bedrooms sponsored by leading
hospitality operators such as Hilton, Milsom Hotels and other leading hospitality brands.
Stephen Robson joined WHH as General Manager in February 2024 having held GM and Head Chef
roles at several high-quality businesses in Suffolk and Essex. Stephen had a lengthy “To Do List” and
with the key metric of Food Profitability being one that he knew should be better, in this case study
we expand on the Food Profitability challenges, the opportunities and the solution provided by
Profit Hound Ltd.
“I was introduced to Simon at Profit Hound by a mutual contact and quickly realised
WHH could take a quite different approach to Food Profitability!
Simon has really supported my team to Unlock our Food Profit Potential and after 5 months we’ve seen savings of £35,000 or 5-6% points on our margin. Simon’s work has given us much greater margin control, streamlined our supplier network and developed our kitchen team. Simon really understands the hospitality market and I would highly recommend his services……top job!”
- Stephen Robson – General Manager, Wivenhoe House Hotel
The Problem with Food Profitability
Food margin at WHH was 3-4% points off budget, with a stella culinary background Stephen could
have resolved the problems but with a long to do list and a longstanding agreement with a leading
Food Profit and Procurement business, Stephen turned to them for support and solutions.
The solution was to push more “Approved Suppliers” but with supplier rebates they were not always
competitive on price and there was a reluctance to engage with existing supply chain at WHH.
In addition to this, with just 50% of food spend within their control this rendered the “Free” online
platform redundant so full Spend Analysis, Menu Costings, Flash Food Reporting, Allergen
Management were not possible.
So, with no effective solutions offered and following an introduction to Simon at Profit Hound,
Stephen decided it was time for a change, here’s what happened next.
So what happened next?
Procurement Review
The headline output was Simon showed a minimum saving of £50,000 or 12%.
Two months spend data from all key WHH suppliers was gathered by Simon to analyse performance
on 4 key metrics Price, Service, Quality and Data and with No Approved Suppliers and No Supplier
Rebate payments to consider, Simon was able to review the entire supplier network with complete
independence focussed solely on the best interest of WHH, the key outcomes are explained below;
-
Fresh Produce - introducing a second supplier to facilitate a dynamic market on a key spend
-
Wholesale - replacing two of the three suppliers with one new supplier via Profit Hound
-
Meat – replacing two of the three existing suppliers that could deliver 20% basket saving
-
Rebates – removing supplier rebates going to the food procurement business
A new supply chain was agreed knowing that suppliers had been given their opportunity put
forward their best proposition, to avoid the temptation of being influenced by “Entry Pricing” from
potential new suppliers, to retain the artisan suppliers giving us “Food Stories” and allowing us to
focus on next steps required to fixing the margin!
Kitchen Management Support
The price of product is just one element required to deliver the required margins; next we expand on the support delivered to:
-
Priced Order Sheets – building a bespoke user-friendly Order Guide using the suppliers fixed monthly pricing to guide chefs to the best value and quality option, on all purchased, a simple way to deliver smart savings.
-
Flash Food Report - the existing report was amended to give a clearer, chef-friendly “Flash”
with Profit Hound tracking output back to P&L numbers and supplier spend data to sense check accuracy and report on variances to improve accuracy ongoing. This report has now been taken online via our chosen Tech Platform.
-
Ongoing Supplier Spend Data – Profit Hound have managed monthly supplier price files and monthly product line spend data, validating the price paid, requesting credits due and exception reporting on any “Missed Opportunities” which have now reduced to what would be considered normal business costs, maximising profit potential.
-
Stock Holding – Profit Hound identified that the valuation was significantly higher than
expected and the valuation has now more than halved, giving an additional £10,000+ savings into cash flow and profits.
-
Online Kitchen Management – Jelly Kitchen has been introduced to reduce the volume of
kitchen administration and simplify processes. Jelly uses supplier invoices to populate
product costs allowing accurate menu costings, facilitating accurate stock taking as well as automating the Flash Food Report and giving insight on product cost increase/decrease.
-
Menus – there was a big project lead by Stephen to streamline menus, especially events and Christmas, to reduce kitchen pressures and workload as well as improving margins and using Jelly for accurate menu costings.
“…….as a chef there’s so many balls to juggle, managing margins, staff development, all the legal compliance and not least delighting our guests! So, when Stephen introduced me to Simon, I was glad to get his support but concerned about him adding to my workload…...I needn’t have worried, Simon is an expert at all things procurement and food GP but also really happy to do the heavy lifting for me. I really value Simon’s support; his knowledge and professionalism and I would have no hesitation in recommending Profit Hound to any chef!”
Andrew Turnbull, Head Chef, Wivenhoe House Hotel
Profit Hound take No Supplier Payments and have No Nominated Suppliers for Ultimate Flexibility.
“Profit Hound were delighted to be introduced to Stephen and given the opportunity to
support WHH again, having previously supported the business in a previous role.
It has been extremely rewarding to see this project through from an initial conversation
thinking there was a good opportunity to help, right through to seeing the significant P&L
improvement!
Delivering savings and the real benefit of improved control is what I set out to achieve when I launched Profit Hound back in 2020 and I am delighted to have another success story to tell”
Simon Elliott, Founder & Director, Profit Hound