Sara Grupe

• Manage a territory of nearly 300 accounts in the segments of lodging, healthcare, travel stops, and restaurants. Sales exceed $1 million per week.
• Support Chefs, Managers, and Purchasing departments at full-service and luxury hotels. Provide daily support for order allocation, inventory management, reporting, product sourcing, seasonal planning, and credit management.
• Coordinate with Hilton Supply Management on compliance opportunities, product assortment requests, reporting, and service concerns.
• Facilitate brand standard compliance with limited-service hotels while guiding the teams through seasonal changes and new product rollouts.
• Manage Chicago-serviced healthcare facilities with National IDs of Forum, HPSI, Navigator, and Sunrise. Guide Dining Directors through market and supply-chain challenges with an understanding of portion costs, labor constraints, and resident satisfaction.
• Partner with HQCOE to provide last mile support for Belmont Village Senior Living and Love's Travel Stops. Act as the local contact for all units to assist with product questions and substitutions, inventory fluctuations, and routing or delivery issues.
• Acted as Lead House for Freshii. Coordinated with Foodastic Canada team to execute US rollouts of LTOs and new juice program. Researched product selection and availability for 17 Sysco Sites. Directed local Account Managers on new item activations, timelines, auto shipments, and franchisee communications. Provided sales reporting and purchasing analyses for all US stores. Participated in planning discussions for MSA.
• Serves as BOS Champion for Great Lakes region-Chicago. Coach fellow Account Mangers on techniques and strategies to increase adoption and automation percentages to surpass the goals of 90% and 80%, respectively. Chicago is currently at a Site best of 96.6% for adoption and 88.8% for automation.
• Consistently rank among Top 3 in the region for AM Scorecard results and completed CPC events.

• Grew my territory in the Northern Suburbs of Chicago from annual sales of $406,000 in fiscal 2010 to over $6 million in fiscal 2017.
• Chairman's Club award winner for 2015.
• Combined my industry knowledge with Sysco products and services to assist customers in effective product selection, menu planning, food cost control, and operation efficiencies.
• Assisted in training new Marketing Associates by participating in ride alongs and development of operation and product knowledge.
• Developed a loyal customer base by immersing myself in the customers' businesses to address their needs in a customized and unique manner.

• Managed all aspects of a high-volume café including internal marketing and sales building, manager and associate development, facilities management, and purchasing and cost control.
• Compiled, analyzed, and reported weekly district recaps of key metrics including retail, catering and bakery sales, transaction counts, labor hours, and promotion progress.
• Maintained catering sales volume ranking within the top three of all Chicago market cafés.
• Achieved 2010 year-to-date controllable profit of 33.1%, currently earning $130,000 over 2009.
• Improved guest satisfaction Promoter Score from a café low of 33% to a high of 86%.
• Netted positive comparable sales in each of the past 28 consecutive financial periods.
• Earned the Chicago market's highest controllable profit of 34.7% in period 4 of 2010.
• Significantly improved key metrics from promotion to GM in March 2008 to October 2010.
• Grew Average Weekly Sales 12.4%
• Lowered Food Cost 3.3%
• Lowered Cost of Goods 2.6%
• Lowered Labor Cost 8.5%
• Increased Controllable Profit 4.8%

• Acted as District Manager for the Vernon Hills store including store audits, goal setting, sales building and marketing initiatives, service and quality improvement, and performance management.
• Assisted in the development of Store Managers by conducting individual and group training in P&L Management, Staffing and Scheduling, Performance Management, and Operating Statement Reconciliation.
• Taught certification courses for all Shift Supervisors in the Illinois market.
• Trained 14 new Store Managers and mentored their development in the transition from training to management.
• Increased weekly sales at the Glenview store from a 2003 average of $6875 to a 2006 average of $10,975.
• Increased controllable profit at the Glenview store from 22% in 2003 to 33% in 2006.
• Exceeded all goals in bean and beverage promotions, consistently ranking top in the District and among the top 5% in the Midwest Region.
• 2005 Midwest Region Core Values Award Winner, “Be Excellent, Not Average”.
• 2004 Midwest Region Core Values Award Winner, “Enjoy What You Do”.

Betise was a 140-seat fine dining French bistro. The Convito Italiano trattoria was a moderately priced Italian restaurant seating 60 inside and 40 on the outdoor terrace. The Convito Italiano market offered imported foods, freshly baked breads and sweets, a European deli, gourmet groceries, an Italian wine shop and Catering services.

• Oversaw the Betise Restaurant Manager, Convito Italiano Restaurant Manager, and Convito Italiano Store Manager and ensured that position goals were met including service, problem solving, cash reconciliation, and facilities management.
• Developed training manuals For Betise and Convito Italiano for Hosts, Bartenders, and Servers.
• Purchased wine, beer, liquor, deli items, and nonfood supplies for all three operations. Coded and processed all invoices and conducted monthly inventories.
• Planned, coordinated, and executed special events for all three operations for holidays, catering, private parties and wine tastings.

• Managed all aspects of the front-of-the-house including hiring and training and ordering of nonfood supplies and liquor.
• Reduced liquor cost by 2% through reorganization of storeroom and development of accurate par levels.
• Conducted vendor cost analyses for nonfood supplies.