Most food manufacturers have $1M–$2M in annual EBITDA sitting unreported in their daily operations. The EBITDA Lens™ finds it, quantifies it, and closes it — in 90 days.
On an ordinary Wednesday, I sat in a food plant startup meeting and wrote a dollar amount next to every event reported. Not minutes. Not "managed and resolved." Dollars.
Before 8 a.m., the number was $41,169. None of those events were unusual. Every one was managed. Not one had ever been reported in dollars.
The formula is simple: Contribution margin per unit × line rate per minute × event duration. Applied to the events your team already reports every morning.
Find My Number →Each event was reported in under 30 seconds as "managed and resolved." None were translated into dollars. Until now.
The same eight EBITDA leak categories exist in every food manufacturing plant. The EBITDA Lens™ quantifies all eight — using your own contribution margin and production data. No benchmarks. No estimates. Your numbers.
A business novel about a food manufacturing plant manager who discovers that the $1.76M gap between his operation's performance and his PE firm's financial model is not a management problem — it is a translation problem.
Over 14 months, Matt Sorensen builds the EBITDA Lens™ methodology from the floor up, category by category. The result: $2.07 million in verified EBITDA improvement. 98.6% of the acquisition model recovered.
"The money was never missing. It was just waiting to be seen."
Written in the tradition of Goldratt's The Goal, with a Socratic mentor arc and every calculation verified by four independent financial reviewers. The methodology is not theoretical — it is operational, audited, and applied in real food plants.
I identify, quantify, and prioritize hidden EBITDA leaks in labor, yield, giveaway, rework, downtime, ramp-up, and schedule execution. Two days per month. No full-time headcount. Results in 90 days.
Downloadable tools built from the same methodology as the full engagement. Use them independently or as preparation before the diagnostic.
I have spent three decades in food manufacturing — running production lines, managing plants, overseeing VP-level P&L accountability across USDA and FDA regulated facilities. I have been the plant manager who couldn't close the loop between operational performance and what the P&L reported. I know that gap from the inside.
The EBITDA Lens™ was built because I got tired of watching competent operators fight budget battles in the wrong language. Operational metrics — OEE, attainment, reject rate — are real. But they are not the language your CFO, your PE firm, or your board speaks. The gap between those two vocabularies is where $1M–$2M lives in every mid-size food plant I have ever walked.
"The money was never missing. It was just waiting to be seen."
I documented the methodology in a business novel — Built in Ounces and Minutes — and now deploy it as an embedded operating partner engagement in PE-backed and privately-held food manufacturers across the Southeast and beyond.
Prior roles include VP of Operations at Kabobs, Director of Manufacturing at Holistic Industries, Plant Manager at Trident Seafoods, Excelso Coffee, Ken's Foods, and others spanning USDA and FDA regulated environments. Based in Fayetteville, Georgia.
Enter your email and I'll send you the exact formula used in the Wednesday morning startup meeting — contribution margin per minute, applied to your own production data. Immediately usable.
No spam. One email. Unsubscribe anytime. bill@theebitdalens.com
A free 20-minute conversation. You'll know by the end whether the EBITDA Lens™ belongs in your plant.
Accepting two new diagnostic engagements for July 2026.