The term sales is used in several ways among professionals in the foodservice industry. For the term to be meaningful, one must be specific about the context in which it is used. The following paragraphs, therefore, define the term and explore some of the many ways it is used in the industry.
Definition of sales
In general, the term sales is defined as the revenue resulting from the exchange of products and services for value. In our industry, the food and beverage sales are exchanges of the product and services of a restaurant, bar, or related enterprise for value. We normally express sales in monetary terms, although there are other possibilities. Actually, there are two basic groups of terms normally used in food and beverage operations to express sales concepts: monetary and non-monetary.