How Does Food Waste and Theft Happen In A Restaurant?
Posted by Jim McGinty on Wed, Jan 13, 2010 @ 12:37 PM
Whether you run a quick service or a fine-dining restaurant, the amount of money you make depends to a degree on how well you manage your inventory. Food cost is often a restaurant's largest single expense in the overall cost of running a restaurant.
It's common for restaurants to lose money through poor inventory management. Start-ups are particularly exposed to this cash drain, since they often do not have their financial control systems secured. But even the most well-managed, well-established restaurants have ongoing challenges with waste and theft.
Consider all the challenges of dealing with food. Your have a lot of inventory items and most of it is perishable with a limited shelf life. Failure to use a product within its shelf life results in throwing it into the trash and there go some of your hard-earned profits.
The more people involved in taking "raw" inventory and converting it to the delivered product, the more difficult it is to control loss, waste and misuse of inventory. The typical restaurant has dozens if not hundreds of raw and partially prepared food products in storage. You're stocking lots of desirable products to which many people have access. Depending on size, nature, volume and recipes in your business, there's a good chance that you'll have between 200 and 500 different raw food products in your storage rooms that are of value to everyone. The more products you have, the more challenging it is to control their use. The more of anything you have, the less likely one or two items will be immediately missed.
Manual counts, stock rotation, and portion control can help you control costs and ensure consistency. You will see the results in your profits at the end of the day. Whether you are using manual methods or examining your inventory in detail with software, when your employees see that you're keeping close watch on inventory, waste naturally decreases. Letting your staff know that you are tracking inventory carefully can have other benefits as well.
Adjusting for waste
Does your staff keep track when food is burned or spilled? To account for inventory properly, you will need to adjust stock levels whenever there is waste in the kitchen. You may want to have your staff report mishaps to the manager on duty and adjust for waste as it happens. Or you may prefer to use a waste worksheet in the kitchen and enter the adjustments into the software daily or weekly.
Stocking
Review your stocking procedures to avoid spoilage: organize your storage in such a way that products don't stay hidden in the back. Crowded, messy areas act like black holes for missing product and make it difficult to conduct counts. Make sure stored food is properly wrapped, covered, and labeled with a date so that it can be used before it spoils. Have a rotation policy in place for your stock. Food that comes first should be used first. Have your staff stock new items at the back of the fridge or freezer.
Counting
Regular physical stock counts are necessary for the smooth running of your inventory program. Physical counts are essential because they determine your actual usage. Conduct a daily inventory of 8 to 10 key food items. Spot inventory checks should be done in full view of employees as well, which keep the staff mindful that a theft would be hard to pull off. How often should you count? The recommended inventory period is one week, certain items you may want to count daily. This takes time but its time well spent especially if you suspect theft.
So ask yourself you if you are doing the following and if not it's a good place to start.
- Do you have consistent recipes for all your menu items?
- Are you portion-controlling your most costly items?
- Are you keeping no more than a week's stock on hand and systematically rotating perishable product to limit waste?
- Are you doing a physical inventory at least once a week?
- How much money do you have tied up in inventory? To limit waste and spoilage, industry consultants recommend keeping no more than a week's worth of stock on hand.
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