Southern Oklahoma Tech is a technical school that offers top-notch full-time career development programs in health science, business management, STEM, arts and communication, and more. However, before implementing MarketMan, their school food system was totally analog.

Shannon Lewis, the Food Service Manager, was frustrated spending the majority of his time keeping track of inventory by hand to make sure he could feed over 1,500 students each week. He knew there had to be a better way, so he started shopping around for a system that would integrate with both the existing school setup and the Square platform.

“[Marketman] software lined up perfectly for us,” said Lewis. “There’s nothing that I can’t track. Not only does it coincide with Square, but it also takes over 90% of my job…it’s been great for us.”

Going Digital With Inventory Accounting

Lewis and his team no longer have to worry about manual inventory accounting, and those time savings are priceless. But the savings don’t stop there –  Lewis also credits Marketman with helping him save money through vendor price checks within the software.

He can easily toggle between vendors and shop around to get the best deal and find cheaper options for food items and ingredients. Plus, he no longer has to deal with placing orders in person, as everything can be done quickly online. Then, he passes on those savings to the students, and is delighted to give them the best possible price on wholesome meals.

Running the software on several kitchen tablets has been a huge boon for keeping track of inventory, too. Cooks can indicate when they’ve taken out an ingredient, so Lewis can easily see how much product was used at the end of each day.

Streamlining Kitchen Operations With Sub Recipes

Before implementing the software in their kitchen process, the back-of-house team was wasting so much time scrolling through recipes online, trying to find what they needed to cook at each given moment. Lewis quickly solved this problem by installing several tablets on the frontlines that display the “Subrecipes” tab on Marketman. Now, the cooks have easy access to all the recipes they need right in front of them, which helps them stay organized and know exactly which ingredients to get out. This helps reduce food waste in the kitchen, too, as there’s no second-guessing involved.

Lewis found that the recipe-building process through Marketman was “definitely worth the extra five minutes.” Although it took some upfront effort, it was a huge relief that once he put his recipes in, they’re ready for his staff anytime they need them.

Marketman Saves Precious Time

Lewis credits Marketman on helping organize his kitchen in ways he couldn’t have imagined. Before, doing inventory by hand would take three or four days, and now it’s down to just thirty minutes – that’s including inventory from the freezer, cooler, and frontline.

Overall, Lewis says that time is the main thing he’s saved with Marketman – his most precious resource when running a busy university kitchen.

“Marketman is one of the best investments my department has made,” Lewis said. “I love showing my boss how much time we’ve saved.”