Catering for healthy savings at Lincat

Lincat is one of the world’s leading names in commercial catering equipment, with a range of some 450 products including fryers, griddles, grills, ovens and combi steamers, as well as water boilers, hot cupboards, trolleys and food display merchandisers

When Andrew Brackenbury, Client Manager at Expense Reduction Analysts, originally met Zoë Heywood, Purchasing Manager at Lincat in April 2008, Zoë had a long list of areas in which she felt savings could be made. Zoë wanted her team to focus on more strategic cost areas, and she felt that they were distracted by trying to manage all of these other categories of peripheral expenditure. This challenge became compounded when she lost one of her team of four staff.

Zoë was therefore doubly enthusiastic about the track record of cost reduction that Andrew demonstrated to her. Lincat was signed up and the first project – on scrap metal waste – was delivered in September 2008. This initial project amply illustrated the value that Expense Reduction Analysts’ specialist knowledge can bring to our clients. Through our industry expertise, we were successful in securing favourable rates for Lincat’s scrap metal waste during a period when the metals market has been especially volatile.

A number of Expense Reduction Analysts specialists have worked on Lincat projects, including Steve Clamp, of our Business Plant Facilities Management team, and Keith Robinson. Steve was instrumental in saving the company significant sums on items such as contract cleaning, PPE and workwear. Keith worked hard to understand Lincat’s business processes around waste, and to recommend changes to those processes – and associated suppliers – that have precipitated huge savings.

The outcomes in each of the categories reviewed demonstrate the flexibility inherent in Expense Reduction Analysts’ approach. To save money on waste management, we recommended a change of supplier, whilst we were able to deliver significant savings on business print by staying with the incumbent provider. We could not find any savings in office supplies, because Lincat was already receiving best value, but consolidating engineering consumables suppliers yielded good profit improvement. Further projects, such as utilities and manned security, are in their early stages, and plans are in place to bring more on-stream as 2009 progresses.

Zoë Heywood sums up the value of Expense Reduction Analysts to Lincat: “As Purchasing Manager, I was well aware that many cost categories needed to be looked at, but I simply did not have the manpower to do this, and to fulfil all of the team’s other responsibilities. Andrew came along at just the right time, and he and his colleagues have taken a huge burden off my team and me – as well as delivering huge savings. Quite simply, Expense Reduction Analysts have made it happen.”