Food Management Systems & Data Manager

El Pollo Loco•Costa Mesa, CA

About The Position

The Food Management Systems & Data Manager owns El Pollo Loco’s recipe and food inventory systems and serves as the single source of truth for recipe and inventory data. This role maintains accurate data, analyzes it to improve food cost and profitability, and ensures menu items are built and maintained consistently across all El Pollo Loco locations. The manager audits and cleans recipe and inventory records, maintains current recipe costing, analyzes actual-versus-theoretical food cost, and supports food-cost and waste-reduction improvements. The role owns new item and recipe setup, supports consistent inventory practices, and manages integrations with Supply Chain partners and vendors. It also serves as a resource for company and franchise operators, administers platform access, improves reporting, and provides leadership with actionable analysis and recommendations.

Requirements

3–5 years of restaurant back-office experience in inventory, costing, or finance.
Hands-on experience with food management systems, such as CrunchTime or Restaurant365.
Proven track record of data cleanup and data integrity work.
Working knowledge of FTP (File Transfer Protocol), GDSN (Global Data Synchronization Network), and POS systems.
Advanced Excel skills.
Experience supporting field or franchise operators and explaining technical issues in plain language.
Analytical, detail-oriented, and proactive approach, with strong communication skills.

Nice To Haves

Multi-unit QSR experience is preferred.
Bachelor’s degree in business, finance, hospitality, or a related field is preferred; equivalent experience is also accepted.

Responsibilities

Audit recipe and inventory data to identify and correct inconsistencies, errors, and outdated entries.
Clean the recipe database by removing duplicates, standardizing formatting, and verifying ingredient quantities across locations.
Clean inventory data by resolving discrepancies, standardizing units of measure, and archiving inactive items.
Monitor data daily to prevent errors from accumulating.
Maintain current recipe costing in the Recipe & Food Inventory System, including updates for vendor price changes.
Standardize portion sizes, develop efficient prep schedules, and roll out digital checklists to reduce waste.
Calculate actual-versus-theoretical food cost and identify root causes of losses, such as portioning, spoilage, or theft.
Implement platform features that improve ordering, waste tracking, and food-cost performance.
Own new item and recipe setup, establishing protocols for accurate and timely entry in partnership with Supply Chain and Culinary.
Support restaurant inventory practices, including physical counts, FIFO/FEFO, and usage-rate monitoring to right-size stock levels.
Manage Supply Chain partner and vendor integrations, including secure FTP data exchange, GDSN product data and images, and troubleshooting transmission errors.
Support company and franchise operators with recipe and food inventory system questions, data validation, and system inquiries.
Troubleshoot restaurant recipe, inventory, and costing issues and resolve them promptly.
Validate operator-reported discrepancies against system data and follow through on corrections.
Gather operator feedback to improve system setup, training, and day-to-day usability.
Audit and clean up reports by retiring outdated or duplicate reports and consolidating the remaining reports into a usable set.
Streamline the data points presented to restaurant and field leaders so they receive relevant metrics without clutter.
Manage platform access and user roles for company, franchise, and corporate users, and review access regularly as roles change.
Build and maintain food cost, variance, and inventory reports for Operations, Finance, and franchise partners.
Identify trends and opportunities and provide leadership with clear, actionable recommendations.