When you're running over 180 dining locations across theme parks, dinner shows, and aquariums—each with their own unique menus, vendors, and seasonal demands—keeping tabs on inventory and food costs can feel like a roller coaster ride. That was the reality for Herschend Family Entertainment, the world’s largest family-owned themed attraction company and home to Dollywood, until they teamed up with Crunchtime.
Before Crunchtime, Herschend’s operations were a patchwork of spreadsheets, outdated systems, and siloed data. “It was difficult to know where to start,” shared Heather Barnhart, Revenue Systems Manager. Some teams were flying blind without real-time visibility into food costs, vendor pricing, or inventory movement—key elements for making profitable decisions at scale.
They needed more than just another tool. They needed a powerful, scalable platform that could streamline operations across diverse properties, without slowing them down.
Crunchtime delivered. With full-featured support for bid management, purchasing, inventory counts, menu costing, and recipe prep, the platform brought order to the chaos.
The implementation process was built for long-term success. “Crunchtime’s team helped us build a data strategy and stuck with us as we found our ‘ah-ha’ moments,” said Barbara Stanley, Director of Revenue Systems and Analytics.
Key wins included:
Centralized vendor management with visibility into pricing and contracts across properties
Real-time recipe costing and over 6,000 standardized recipes documented in one place
Inventory transfers between locations to reduce waste and cover shortfalls
Faster, more accurate ordering and receiving, cutting out manual processes
Within the first year, the results were more than just encouraging—they were transformative:
$783,000 saved at Dollywood alone from just a 1% reduction in cost of sales (COS)
2 hours saved per inventory count, equating to 100 labor hours saved per period at each dining location
Greater negotiating power with vendors thanks to clearer pricing data
Improved P&L understanding among operations teams
They even uncovered surprising savings in everyday items, like $50,000 from better garbage bag purchasing.
Now rolling out Crunchtime at five additional properties, Herschend is just getting started. With features like actual vs. theoretical reporting and auto-forecasting on the horizon, the organization is poised to unlock even more operational excellence.
“Crunchtime has transformed how we approach our food cost analytics,” said Stanley. And as Brandon Willett, Corporate Food and Beverage Purchasing Manager, put it, “We’ve built an entire team of food leaders that better understand their P&L because of the tools within Crunchtime.”
For growing hospitality brands, the right technology isn’t just a system—it’s a strategic advantage. And Herschend Family Entertainment is riding that wave all the way to the top. Read the full case study here.