Reducing food waste with stock counts

Where the waste goes

Food leaves a kitchen in only a few ways: it is sold, it is eaten by staff, it is thrown away, or it disappears without a record. Waste hides in the last two. A routine that records the first three makes the fourth visible.

Kitchen waste usually comes from a handful of places:

• Spoilage — stock that went off before it was used.
• Over-preparation — more prepped than the service needed.
• Trimming and cooking loss — the part of an ingredient that never reaches the plate.
• Mistakes and returns — dishes made wrong, dropped, or sent back.
• Plate waste — food guests leave.

Each has a different fix, so the first job is to know which is yours.

Step 1: log what you throw away

Put a simple rule in the kitchen: anything thrown away gets written down — what, how much, and why. Keep the reasons short and fixed, so you can add them up: spoiled, damaged, expired, over-prepared, spilled, other.

Do it at the moment it happens, not at the end of the night. After two weeks you will see patterns: the same sauce over-prepped every Monday, the same herbs going off before Friday, the same dish coming back.

Step 2: count what you have

A stock count — a stocktake — tells you what is really on the shelf. Count the items that cost most and spoil fastest every week; count everything at least once a month.

Count the same way each time: same order round the store room, same units, same time of day. If you can, have someone count who doesn't see the "expected" figure first — a blind count — so the count is what is there, not what should be there.

Step 3: compare with what you sold

The useful number is the gap. If your recipes say a week's sales should have used 20 kg of chicken, and the count says 26 kg left the shelf, 6 kg went somewhere else. Your wastage log explains some of it; the rest is the waste you weren't seeing — over-portioning, unrecorded staff meals, mistakes, or theft.

This only works if each dish has a recipe: what one portion takes from stock. Even rough recipes for your top dishes are enough to start.

Step 4: prep to what you'll sell

Over-preparation is often the quickest waste to cut. Instead of prepping "the usual", set a par level for each prepped item — how much you want ready when service starts — and prep only the difference between the par and what is already there. Adjust the par from your sales: a quiet Monday needs less than a Saturday.

Step 5: order to what you'll use

Ordering in big batches to save a little on price can cost more in spoilage. Order perishables to the next few days' need, set a reorder level for each ingredient, and check deliveries against what you ordered — weight and quality — before the driver leaves.

Step 6: fix the menu

Your wastage log and your sales together often point at the menu:

• a dish that sells rarely but needs its own perishable ingredients;
• portions that come back half-eaten;
• garnishes nobody eats.

Our guide to menu engineering shows how to look at each dish's sales and margin together.

Make it a habit, not a project

Waste comes back when the routine stops. Keep it light:

• a wastage log at the station, always used;
• a weekly count of the expensive, perishable items;
• a monthly full count;
• ten minutes a week looking at the numbers with the head chef.

How BillDine helps

• Recipes take stock down as you sell. A recipe says what one portion of a dish takes from stock, with an optional wastage percentage for what is lost in cleaning or cooking. Every kitchen ticket then takes those ingredients out of the outlet's stock by itself.
• The Wastage Log. Inventory → Wastage Log → Log Wastage records what was thrown away with a reason — Spoiled, Damaged, Expired, Over-prep, Spillage or Other — and notes.
• Stocktake and blind counts. Inventory → Stocktake gives a count sheet for the whole store; type what is on the shelf, and Complete Stocktake posts every difference at once. A blind count hides what the books say from the person counting.
• Approval for big changes. A correction, wastage entry or stocktake worth more than the outlet's approval limit waits for an owner or manager, and nobody approves their own. A wrong entry is reversed, not deleted.
• Prep sheet. For each prepared item with a par level, the Prep sheet shows what is on hand and what is left to make today; marking it done puts the prepared item into stock and takes its ingredients out.
• Low stock and ordering. Each ingredient has a reorder level; low and empty ingredients are listed under Stock alerts, and Add everything that is low puts them on a purchase order in whole packs. Receive goods records what actually arrived.
• What a dish costs. While you write a recipe, BillDine shows the cost per portion and the food cost as a share of the price.

See inventory in depth for which plans include stock.

A weekly routine

1. Log every item thrown away, with a reason, as it happens.
2. Count the expensive and perishable items each week; everything each month.
3. Compare what left the shelf with what the recipes say you sold.
4. Set par levels and prep to them.
5. Order perishables to the next few days' need.
6. Look at the numbers for ten minutes with the head chef, and change one thing.