Misjudging orders or overspending on food can directly impact your profit margins. By using customized forecasting based on historical data, you can enhance restaurant operations and steadily reduce food costs.
Controlling food costs is a constant challenge for restaurant operators, and it has only intensified in recent years. With fluctuating sales, perishable ingredients, and skyrocketing prices, the margin for error has become even smaller.Â
According to the National Restaurant Association’s latest report, nine out of ten operators say their food costs, as a percentage of sales, are higher than pre-pandemic levels—and most don’t foresee this changing anytime soon.
If you misjudge your food orders or overspend on ingredients, your bottom line suffers. The good news? There are proven strategies to help you handle these costs. From customized forecasting based on historical data to smarter purchasing practices, here are 10 essential tips for controlling food costs in your restaurant and improving your profitability over time.
Effective food cost management is key to maximizing your restaurant’s profitability and sustainability. By adopting targeted strategies, you can streamline operations, reduce waste, and ensure that every dollar spent on ingredients contributes to your bottom line.
Data is the key to unlocking savings and efficiency in your restaurant operations. To make informed decisions about ordering, inventory, and portion sizes, you need accurate data on sales trends, food usage, and waste. Encouraging a data-driven culture means ensuring that everyone on your team understands the importance of data. With this information at your fingertips, you can make strategic decisions that reduce food costs without sacrificing quality.
Efficient inventory management is vital for controlling food costs. Knowing what ingredients are coming in, what’s being used, and what’s left over can prevent over-ordering and waste. Monitoring inventory closely also helps identify areas of loss, such as kitchen errors or incorrect preparation. This may seem tedious, but it’s one of the best ways to protect your margins.
Cost of Goods Sold (CoGS) represents the total cost of all ingredients used in your restaurant during a specific period. It’s no longer enough to calculate CoGS once a week. Daily reviews allow managers to quickly spot rising costs and adjust orders to avoid overstocking and waste. By making CoGS part of your daily routine, you stay on top of food costs and avoid surprises at the end of the month.
Accurate sales forecasting based on historical data helps managers make better decisions about how much inventory to order. By predicting demand based on previous trends—whether it’s seasonal shifts or busy weekends—you can reduce excess inventory and avoid costly waste. Sales forecasting also helps optimize staffing levels, which contributes to overall operational efficiency.
Waste is one of the biggest contributors to high food costs. Implementing detailed inventory tracking, backed by sales forecasts, helps minimize this waste. When managers have clear data about what is needed, they can avoid ordering too much or too little of perishable items. This way, you can reduce spoilage and save money.
Knowing the exact cost of each recipe is essential for controlling food costs. By calculating the cost of individual ingredients and portion sizes, you can optimize food usage and reduce waste. Over time, you’ll identify trends that can help you save money by adjusting portion sizes or improving staff training to reduce errors. Recipe costing also allows you to evaluate if any high-cost items need menu adjustments.
Your menu pricing strategy directly affects your profit margins. Menu engineering involves analyzing which items are popular and profitable and which are underperforming. If you notice you’re selling a lot of low-margin items, consider adjusting portion sizes or raising prices. Conversely, you might promote high-margin dishes that aren’t getting enough attention. Regularly evaluating and tweaking your menu based on data can help maintain a healthy food cost percentage.
Tracking the difference between actual and theoretical food costs is a powerful tool for identifying waste. Theoretical food costs represent what your food costs should be based on ingredient prices and portion sizes, while actual food costs are what you actually spend. Any discrepancies could signal over-portioning, kitchen waste, or even theft. Monitoring this variance helps you catch issues early and make timely adjustments.
Controlling food costs is not solely the responsibility of management. Your kitchen and service staff play a critical role in minimizing waste and ensuring proper portioning. Ensure that your managers and staff are trained on food cost fundamentals, including FIFO (first-in, first-out) inventory management, proper portion sizes, and reducing mistakes. Regular training keeps everyone focused on minimizing waste, errors, and theft.
Errors in vendor pricing or invoicing can significantly impact your food costs. Establishing clear communication with your suppliers and regularly reviewing contracts ensures that you’re getting the prices you were promised. Automating your receiving reports can help you catch discrepancies early. This transparency ensures you’re not being overcharged and helps maintain a consistent food cost percentage.
At AAA Food Handler, we understand the unique challenges restaurant operators face when it comes to food safety and cost control. With over 35 years of experience in food handling, food safety, training, and management, we have the expertise to help you manage your kitchen more efficiently, reduce food waste, and stay compliant with regulations. Through proper training and management, we can help your team lower costs, improve efficiency, and keep your business profitable.
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Buena información para los que trabajamos con manipulación de alimentos.
Bueno
Excelente entrenamiento, no solo para trabajar en la industria de alimentos, es importante para el dÃa a dÃa
Easy
bueno
Very detail. With a few activities to keep paying attention.
Muy conciso y claro
Good test
Buenas explicaciones
Aprendi de todo manejar la alimentacion no mezclar quimicos Saber las tempreraturas de los alimentos..
Me gusto apredi muy bien explica bien
Curso muy completo bien explicado
Is good to know more about this for yourself and the business!
Thanks for the opportunity to learn more, happy and wonderful day
It covers all the information needed to know.
Very long
It’s a ton of information, but the training system made everything as clear and as informative as possible.
very information & understaanding
This course was very thorough. The graphics and videos were great which helped deepen my understanding of the topics.
Course was well structured and informative. Haven’t taken the exam just yet but feeling confident after taking this course.
Embarking on the journey to become a certified food manager was a decision that significantly impacted my career in the food industry. The food manager training and exam program I enrolled in provided me with the knowledge, skills, and certification necessary to excel in my role and ensure the safety and quality of the food served to customers. One of the most valuable aspects of the training program was the hands-on approach to learning. Through practical exercises, case studies, and real-world scenarios, I was able to apply the knowledge gained in the training sessions to practical situations that I might encounter in my role as a food manager. This hands-on experience was instrumental in preparing me for the challenges of the job and instilling confidence in my abilities. I would highly recommend this program to anyone looking to elevate their skills, knowledge, and career prospects as a food manager. The investment of time and effort is well worth the rewards of professional growth and success in this dynamic and rewarding field.
Great course structure and clear.
Se apende mucho gracias por la información
Muy buen curso se aprende mucho
I found this course to be very informative, educational and helpful. As a new restaurant owner, I find this training extremely helpful.
I have taken several food handling courses in the past and this was a really comprehensive course for food managers. I do wish that whoever did the instructional design for this course had incorporated some more activities throughout. It was sometimes really hard to get through all the modules just from having someone talk at me in a monotone voice.
I enjoyed this course.
The course gave great in depth details about the Food Safety and allows users to be informative about food related illnesses and how to prevent them.
This course was really informative, helpful and easy to access
Food manager course was easy to navigate and it was a pretty straight forward course.
Learned a lot of things I never knew! Time to apply them all!
Thank you
Very in depth
Dinámico, entendible y eficiente.
The information was good, but the experience of taking the course was frustrating for several reasons: (1) You can not rewind!!!! If you miss something you have to watch the whole thing just to get that one tiny pc of info! Adds more time! (2) If you don’t click “next module”; fast enough, it starts all over again, and you can’t go to the next module until current is complete, even though you already watched it. (3) If you click on “next module” too soon, it forces you to watch the whole thing all over again!!! (4) They speak too fast! Sometimes you miss what they say, and some of what they say is not on the screen.(5) The handbook/booklet is not available until the end of the course!
Good
The training used a bot voice which is kind of boring but bearable.
It took way longer than it should have because it wouldn’t let me move to the next module after completing it and i was ready to crash out
long
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