The questions ACRA answers
How an engagement is structured, what enters the scope, and what stays with the company when it ends.
Working together
Who does AC Retail Advisory work with?
With the owners and senior leadership of two kinds of company: restaurant and food retail networks, and food manufacturing companies. The counterpart is whoever answers for the P&L and makes the decisions. We also work with the venture capital and private equity funds investing in the sector, alongside the management teams of their portfolio companies.
When does it make sense to bring in an outside advisor?
At the points where a company changes scale or direction: new units, a new channel, an industrial plan to build, a margin that has moved with no explanation, an organization that no longer holds the number of units reached. The later the question comes, the higher the cost of the correction.
Who actually runs the work?
Direction of the engagement stays with Andrea Calistri, founder of AC Retail Advisory. Strategy and channel development are led by him directly. On the other areas of scope, execution is assigned to the professional in the firm chosen for that work, introduced to the client before the start.
How is an engagement structured?
With a scope written before the start: objective, questions to answer, timing, the people from the company involved. Once the scope is closed, the work proceeds in stages, with a review point at each one.
What does “no conclusion without economic proof” mean?
Every recommendation comes with the number behind it: expected effect on the P&L, assumptions stated one by one, worst case. Whoever decides sees where the figure comes from and can change its assumptions.
How long does an engagement last?
From a few weeks on a single issue to continuous work alongside the owners. Duration is part of the scope and is defined before the start.
Restaurant and retail networks
The standard holds where leadership reaches and drops where it does not. Is that a people problem?
Almost never. A standard that depends on someone being present lives in that person's head. The work is to move it into a system that can be consulted and updated, to make it measurable unit by unit, and to train the management roles that hold it up.
Theoretical food cost and actual food cost look nothing alike. Where does the work start?
From the gap between theoretical and actual food cost, unit by unit and SKU by SKU. The causes fit on one hand: recipes that are not codified, free-hand portioning, waste that is never measured, purchase prices that move without the sales price list noticing. Each one is worth a different figure, and the order of the work follows what that figure says.
Revenue per unit has stopped growing. What gets looked at first?
Average check and transaction count, kept separate, by time slot and by day of the week. Then the sales mix. The same unit, with the same traffic, is worth very different figures depending on what it sells in the peak hours.
Labor cost is rising and new hires learn from yesterday's shift. Can that be governed?
On two levers. Building shifts on real traffic instead of last year's history. And training the management roles, because the quality of a new hire depends on whoever trains them on day one.
Is there a minimum network size?
No. The subject opens when a company decides to replicate, and that moment does not coincide with a number of units.
Food manufacturing companies
What does it take to enter a retail channel and stay in it?
Net/net pricing that holds against the channel's terms, a price list that stays consistent across channels, production capacity and logistics service sized to the volumes promised, and a sales organization able to defend the margin in negotiation. The most frequent mistake is entering with a price that holds for the first year and breaks in the second.
Can production hold the volumes that sales promise?
The plant numbers answer that question: line saturation, yields, downtime, waste, full cost per SKU. From there it is clear which volumes are sustainable and at what margin, and which require an investment before they can be accepted.
There are too many SKUs on the price list. How is it decided what to keep?
On actual contribution margin per SKU, including setup, format changeovers and waste. Some SKUs that weigh little on revenue keep a customer in house; others, with high revenue, consume capacity and margin.
Is margin lost in negotiation or in production?
It gets measured. The economics of a single SKU are rebuilt from full plant cost through to the net/net collected after promotions, year-end rebates and returns. In most cases both causes are present, weighted differently from channel to channel.
Confidentiality, scope, first contact
How is company data handled?
Under a confidentiality agreement signed before any number is received. The documents and models produced during the engagement remain the property of the company.
What stays with the company when the engagement ends?
The models, the documents and the measurement system, built on the client's processes and handed to the client, with the company's people trained to run them on their own.
Do you work only in Italy?
Italy and Europe. Direct management experience covers Italy, the Netherlands and France.
How does it start?
A conversation with our CEO Andrea, or with one of our people, about the situation in front of you — to see whether there is room to act, and how deep it goes.
A question that is not on the list?
A conversation with our CEO Andrea, or with one of our people, about the situation in front of you — to see whether there is room to act, and how deep it goes.
Let’s dig into the problem