Restaurant inventory and food costing without the guesswork

Most restaurants run inventory on instinct and a notebook. That hides two expensive problems: spoilage you cannot see, and a plate cost you only guess at.

Put shelf-life on every batch

Perishable stock needs an expiry, and the kitchen needs to consume the oldest first. First-expiry-first-out plus a wastage log makes spoilage visible — and what is visible gets smaller.

Cost the recipe, not the vibe

A recipe ties a dish to its ingredients. Run a production batch and the system consumes ingredients, records yield and scrap, and rolls up the real cost. Now "is this dish worth it?" has an answer.

Sell a plate, deplete the pantry

When a menu item sells, it should backflush its recipe — consuming the underlying ingredients automatically. Your raw-material on-hand stays honest without anyone counting.

Watch yield, not just purchases

Expected-versus-actual yield is where margin leaks. A yield-variance report points at the station, the supplier, or the recipe that is costing you.

Keep compliance close

Veg/non-veg and allergen flags, plus FSSAI licence details, live on the item — ready for an audit or a customer question.

FAQ

How often should I count kitchen stock? Count high-value, fast-moving items — meat, oil, cheese, dairy — every week. Everything else monthly is enough. A short weekly count that actually happens beats a full stocktake that gets postponed. Count at the same time each week, after close and before the next delivery lands.

What food cost percentage should I aim for? There is no single right number; it depends on your format and your pricing. The trend matters more. If your recipe cost is stable while your actual cost keeps climbing, the gap is wastage, over-portioning or theft — and that gap is the thing to fix.

How do I count part-used items like a half bottle of oil? Pick one unit and one method, then stay with it — weigh open containers, or record tenths of a bottle by eye. Consistency matters more than precision, because you are tracking change over time. Switching methods mid-year makes every variance report meaningless.

My staff forget to log wastage. What helps? Keep the log at the bin, not in the office, and make it take seconds — item, quantity, reason. Review it weekly with the team as a costing exercise, not a blame session. A wastage log people get punished for is a wastage log that stops being filled in.