ACF Kitchen Management and Costing 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A kitchen manager implements cross-training for all kitchen staff. The PRIMARY operational benefit is:
- Reducing wages by using fewer skilled employees
- Increasing flexibility to cover absences and peak demand (Correct answer)
- Eliminating the need for standardized recipes
- Reducing the number of menu items offered
Correct answer: Increasing flexibility to cover absences and peak demand
Cross-training allows staff to cover multiple stations, improving scheduling flexibility and reducing the impact of absenteeism.
Question 2: A food cost variance report compares:
- Actual food cost to budgeted or standard food cost (Correct answer)
- Menu prices to competitor prices
- Actual labor hours to scheduled hours
- Current inventory to last month's inventory
Correct answer: Actual food cost to budgeted or standard food cost
A food cost variance report identifies the difference between what food actually cost versus what it should have cost based on standards or budget.
Question 3: In a commissary kitchen operation, the central production facility primarily benefits multi-unit operations by:
- Eliminating the need for storage at individual units
- Standardizing production and reducing labor costs across all units (Correct answer)
- Allowing each unit to customize all recipes independently
- Removing the requirement for trained cooks at each location
Correct answer: Standardizing production and reducing labor costs across all units
Commissary kitchens centralize production to ensure consistency, leverage bulk purchasing, and reduce duplicated labor across locations.
Question 4: The break-even point for a foodservice operation is where:
- Food cost equals labor cost
- Total revenue equals total costs with zero profit or loss (Correct answer)
- Prime cost falls below 60% of sales
- Fixed costs are fully covered by menu pricing
Correct answer: Total revenue equals total costs with zero profit or loss
At break-even, total revenues exactly cover all costs (fixed and variable), resulting in neither profit nor loss.
Question 5: A specification sheet used during the purchasing process describes:
- The recipe method for preparing a product
- The exact quality standards, grades, and characteristics required for a purchased item (Correct answer)
- The supplier's delivery schedule and payment terms
- The storage requirements for perishable goods
Correct answer: The exact quality standards, grades, and characteristics required for a purchased item
Purchase specifications define the quality, grade, size, and other characteristics required so suppliers deliver exactly what the operation needs.
Question 6: Which scheduling approach gives employees a consistent weekly schedule with the same days off each week?
- Flexible scheduling
- Rotating scheduling
- Fixed scheduling (Correct answer)
- On-call scheduling
Correct answer: Fixed scheduling
Fixed scheduling provides employees with the same shift and days off every week, offering predictability for both staff and management.
Question 7: When a kitchen manager performs a 'make or buy' analysis for a menu item, the key question being answered is:
- Which supplier offers the lowest price for the ingredient
- Whether it is more cost-effective to prepare the item in-house or purchase it pre-made (Correct answer)
- How many portions of the item to produce per day
- Which cooking method produces the best yield
Correct answer: Whether it is more cost-effective to prepare the item in-house or purchase it pre-made
A make-or-buy analysis compares the total in-house production cost (ingredients + labor) against the cost of purchasing a prepared product.
ACF Kitchen Management and Costing 5
A kitchen manager implements cross-training for all kitchen staff.
The PRIMARY operational benefit is: