Reduced Expenses

California Pizza Kitchen is no different than other retailers and restaurant chains. As sales slowed during the recession, the chain began to take a closer look at expenses with the intent of seeing where there was the most opportunity to save. One $21 million-a-year line item stuck out: utility costs.

“No one person in the organization was taking ownership of this huge expense,” said Clint Coleman, senior VP development, California Pizza Kitchen (CPK), Los Angeles, which operates more than 250 locations in 33 states and nine foreign countries. “Once we realized how much we were spending on that one operating cost—about 35% of our revenue—it was clear that this was where we had the opportunity to make the biggest splash in terms of cost-cutting.”

Determined to decrease its energy consumption, CPK turned to the same company that was responsible for processing its utility-bill payments: Advantage IQ. Having processed CPK’s utility invoices for several years, the company had built up a vast database of the chain’s energy consumption, with highly detailed profiles of energy use trends at every location in its portfolio.

Using the data from the bill payments, Advantage IQ created monthly Energy Performance Reports that drill down to site-level detail. The reports enabled CPK to compare site performance with portfolio averages and Department of Energy database averages.

“These reports make it possible for the company to understand where we are and navigate where we can go,” Coleman said. “We were able to establish a performance benchmark, set goals and report very specifically on our progress.”

Coleman and his team put the Energy Performance Reports to work, using them to identify the worst performing facilities and analyzing what it was about those sites that made them outliers in their group. He then put solutions in place that would get their energy use back down to the average.

Leveraging the data provided by Advantage IQ, CPK made some key decisions about the behavioral changes and equipment upgrades that would save the most energy and money (see related story). Since embarking on the energy conservation initiative, the chain has lowered its consumption and costs. The estimated impact attributed to reduced use for the first four months of the program is $125,000. CPK is not stopping at its initial efforts.

“This is just phase one,” Coleman said. “We’ll be overhauling a lot of our equipment to achieve greater energy efficiency, and with these reporting tools, we’ll be able to show how much we save down to the last cent.”