How do restaurants in Florida manage food costs? Many of them never find the answer and end up closing because of high costs. After all, this is one of the biggest challenges to profitability.
With rising prices and tight margins, finding reliable wholesale food suppliers in Florida is essential, but this means they are being sought after by everyone.
Great wholesale suppliers allow you to keep costs down and still guarantee quality for your services and final products. Smart sourcing strategies, such as partnering with regional farms and buying discounts produce, can all help.
But how much can they actually offer?
When done right, they can help reduce restaurant food costs 2025 by up to 30%.
It is all about finding the right people, managing costs, and understanding how your own market works.
Our role at Coastal Surplus Solutions is sourcing your food and bringing it from surplus sources. This helps reduce costs by a lot, but what we care about the most today is sharing practical steps.
We want restaurant owners to be able to cut food costs. For it, we share tips on negotiating with wholesale produce vendors, and sourcing from the best seafood wholesalers Miami and many more.
How can you get started? We go one by one.
Step 1: Partner with Regional Farms for Fresh Produce
What we consider the most effective way to control food costs lies in sourcing your produce directly from regional farms.
Working with local farmers not only boosts the economy around in your location but also offers several advantages:
- Lower transportation costs since you can either handle proper and easy delivery, or pick the items yourself.
- Fresher ingredients as they go through fewer steps and fewer miles when going to your restaurant or business.
- Season pricing is amazing since you can go for lower prices and abundant supply during the key seasons or all of them.
- Sustainable practices. Supporting local farms means you help to grow consumer demand in the areas, leading to more sustainability and less time and resources spend in other areas.
As stated by the Green Living Blog, sourcing and relying on local options bring more eco-friendly practices and help with sustainability. You can achieve this while maximizing profits and reducing costs.
Step 2: Buy “Ugly” Vegetables at 40% Discounts
A smart strategy to reduce restaurant food costs 2025 is purchasing “ugly” or cosmetically imperfect vegetables.
These items are perfectly food to eat but often neglected since they don’t meet the standard appearance of traditional retailers. This makes them go to waste, or farms push lower costs to make sure they are sold.
You can benefit from this as you can obtain vegetables for 40% less than their usual prices.
This also follows the circular economy practices as you help in reducing waste and keeping with sustainability.
Now, keep in mind that these vegetables also bring menu flexibility. You can use them for stocks, sauces, specials, or in soups.
Case Study: Orlando Restaurant Cuts Waste and Costs by 35%
The Green Table is a farm-to-table restaurant in Orlando, FL.
It is one of the few places in the city that has implemented sourcing strategies around locals and going for “ugly” vegetables.
While many people were skeptical, the business has been able to achieve remarkable results. Among them, they have reduced costs by 35% and brought many changes in how much food stopped going to waste.
They also achieve a significant increase in customer satisfaction and in sustainability credentials.
Since they access recurring vegetables and products, they can keep meals and other services all fresh.
The restaurant also negotiated favorable terms with wholesale food suppliers in Florida, including flexible delivery schedules. Also, accessed volume discounts from bulk meat suppliers for restaurants, or for seafood.
Cut Costs & Improve Services
Cutting food costs is possible and achievable. It is all a matter of knowing how to approach the process and the strategies needed for it.
At Coastal Surplus Solutions, we help you connect with regional farms, discounted produce, and amazing offers.
You won’t have to worry about researching or how you can get the desired supply chain for your restaurant.
Contact us today and access all the information. We are here if you want expert help to connect with trusted suppliers.
We also negotiate deals for you and focus on how we can help you reduce costs and streamline your process. All of it while maintaining sustainability a priority.
