Fly Food Costs

[Celeste Berg]

I run the Fly Kitchen for the University of Washington in Seattle.
I am interested in comparing the costs of running a kitchen in the
Seattle area with costs at other institutions.  
Our kitchen employs student help ($7.00 and $9.00/hour plus 10% 
benefits).  In addition, we use all glass vials and bottles 
which are autoclaved and washed for reuse.  We plug the bottles 
with reusable foam plugs and the vials with disposable rayon balls. 
We produce on average 110 trays of food each week.  Each tray holds 
20 bottles or 144 vials.  Years of production suggest that each tray 
requires 30 minutes to process from the time the discards enter the 
kitchen until the time the final product is stored in the cold room.  
In the past we have charged approximately $6.50/tray of bottles and 
$8.00/tray of vials, but salary increases are pushing us toward 
raising our prices.  Incidentally, each 1/2 pint milk bottle holds 
approximately 35 ml of media, while each 90 mm x 22 mm vial holds
aproximately 8 ml.
Please let me know what your average costs are.  Price per tray
would be most informative if you use similar numbers/tray and 
volumes/bottle or vial.  Information such as use of plastic vs.
glass and salary scale would also be helpful.
Thank you.
Celeste Berg

Send email to:
berg at genetics.washington.edu