Trimming costs is so much on the minds of purchasing executives that it is hard to have a conversation with one of them without the subject dominating it. After all, they haven't seen anything like this economy.

“No one in the business today has gone through a period quite as unique,” offers Bob Kulick, president of JMC Restaurant Distribution, a division of and exclusive distributor to CiCi's Pizza.

To find out how “unique” and how they are dealing with rising prices, we spoke with three industry veterans: Kulick; Judy Hollis, vice president of supply chain, R&D and quality assurance for Lexington, Ky.-based Fazoli's; and Chris Patterson, president of Austin Grill in Alexandria, Va.

Hollis is no stranger to working under intense pressure. During eight years as senior vice president for supply chain at Wendy's International, she remembers institutional investors leaning on the burger giant to boost margins, which were not comparable to competitors.

“We had to do the same things: very detailed and very careful work on costs,” recalls Hollis, vice president of supply chain for Lexington, Ky.-based Fazoli's System Management, where she's trimming about $2 million from the cost of sales.

At Wendy's, the problem was beef. Today, it's the high cost of commodities in general. “With the commodities market so difficult, profit is even more of a priority,” she says.

Sales and profits were slumping at the 300-unit, fast-casual chain when Sun Capital Partners acquired it for an undisclosed sum in October 2006. CEO Robert Weissmueller hired the veteran purchasing executive a few months later to improve both.

Hollis began by vetting suppliers. Two criteria were especially important: low overhead and access to resources like market research that Fazoli's that didn't have.

One manufacturer offered Fazoli's its test kitchen after Hollis promised to keep the company informed of the chain's initiatives. “I said, 'I will give you opportunities at projects as we develop our strategy and tactics.' So we did just that,” she recalls.

Hollis visited the supplier's test kitchen and, with the help of its culinary staff, developed an Italian beef sandwich that tested well with consumers but exceeded the chain's tight cost standards. The product was changed and eventually rolled out, profitably, last summer. “We always want to be involved in the process,” Hollis says of the time she spent in the test kitchen and with focus groups.

Involvement saves more than money. Early in her career, Hollis saw vendors bringing products that didn't fit a chain's menu positioning. “It was wasted time and effort,” she says. To avoid such missteps, Hollis insists suppliers visit Fazoli's units, talk to managers and watch kitchens produce food.

Hollis isn't entirely unsympathetic to suppliers' problems. “If you are going to weather times like this, you can't turn a cold shoulder to their pressures and refuse reasonable price increases. You have to be in it together,” she explains. “Not that you don't challenge them.”

CiCi's Pizza's Bob Kulick knows that drill only too well. “We really battle to make sure prices are the best they can be,” he says of his relationship with suppliers, with whom he keeps close ties.

The costs of cheese, flour and sauce—the buffet chain's top three product categories—have climbed steeply since the first of the year, and Kulick, who once operated restaurants, understands how dangerous that is. “Costs are escalating much faster than franchisees can raise their prices. There's going to be a disconnect for a period of time,” he says.

Meanwhile, Kulick depends on manufacturers to help him trim costs by value-engineering certain products.

According to Kulick, his social science background (his major in college) has come in handy, helping him to convince manufacturers to go the extra mile. “We sometimes surprise our vendors by asking them how we can be better customers,” he says. One took him up, inviting JMC to place orders later in the week.

Kulick also mentions a time when, lamenting that CiCi's popular Classic Chicken Pizza could only ever be an LTO because of protein costs, a supplier insisted otherwise. “He said, 'I will make my life's work putting this product on your buffet,'” he recalls.

Given fluctuating prices, Kulick is doing supplier reviews more frequently. “Let's look at things now and then again in two months instead of six months,” he explains. “Help us get through these incredibly difficult times.”

Kulick is reluctant to ask vendors to lower raw material costs, conceding they know more about the manufacturing process than he does. Still, he adds, his relationship with suppliers is such that they will call his company to make cost-saving suggestions. “They do come to us on a regular basis and say, 'What do you think of this?''' he says.

Austin Grill also maintains close ties to suppliers but uses an intermediary to stay in touch, says Chris Patterson, who until he left Austin Grill in May was president of the eight-unit chain. While examining purchasing practices “from all angles,” he retained a retired purchasing executive named Jim Husk to help trim the cost of goods. Austin Grill pays Husk a monthly fee; no commissions are involved.

The Atlanta-based consultant, who worked for Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits in the 1980s, also buys the Southwest-themed chain's skirt steak, rice, beans, paper products and chemicals. “I told him I'd do everything except heavy equipment, construction and liquor,” Husk says.

Patterson, who declines to reveal how much Husk has saved the chain, launched the cost-saving process early this year by giving Husk the company's supplier list.

“We started at the top and went to the bottom, trying to see which products we could put on national contracts,” Patterson recalls.

Today the company has leverage on some 20 items, which has helped lower Austin Grill's food cost by a quarter point year to date, Patterson claims. “We've been able to lower the cost on chicken and skirt steak,” he adds.

Managers and staff have also been enlisted in the cost-savings effort. They weigh each box that comes in the back door, particularly if it contains proteins. “We have found on more than one occasion a box of chicken breast or skirt steak 3 or 4 pounds off, and we go right back and ask for a credit,” explains Patterson.

Austin Grill can also count on Thompson Hospitality, the Herndon, Va.-based contract-foodservice company that acquired the chain two years ago, to help trim costs. Patterson cut a deal with the concessionaire's smallwares supplier, saving money.

The proximity of the eight units—all are in the Washington, D.C., area—has kept delivery cost low because one truck can make the rounds. Patterson also reduced the number of weekly drops from three to two per restaurant.

“Any time you go through challenges like these you become a better operator,” he maintains. “You have to get more creative and wiser.”