1. Purchase Right Amount of Stock
Come up with effective stock control and predict the amount of stock/ingredients that you will need based on your restaurant sales history. As Manager, you should know best about the sales of your restaurant dishes to make an effective decision on purchasing the right amount of ingredients. If a certain dish is not selling well, you may want to limit the amount of ingredients to order for that specific dish. For your popular dishes, you may also want to consider the amount of ingredients to order from your supplier in order to avoid over-buying leading to food wastage.
2. Label your Inventory
You should always label your inventory in order to increase the efficiency of stock control. A permanent marker can be used to write details such as the delivery date, the date which a certain drink is made together with its expiry date on the masking tape, which is to be pasted on the inventory/packing such as containers or jugs etc. By doing so, you will be able to know the details of each of your inventory well and avoid using any expiry products due to unclear information. This will come in handy when you store your inventory based on the “First In First Out” Principle which is explained in the next point.
3. Store Inventory based on “First In First Out” Principle
“First In First Out” is the standard of the stock rotation in the Food Industry that all F&B Companies should abide by. The “First In First Out” Principle means that the food delivered first is used first. This ensures that the latest arrivals are routinely placed behind the older, existing stocks so that the latter will always be used up first before it has a chance to deteriorate.
4. Store Inventory in Right Temperature Condition
Storing your inventory/goods in the right place and under right temperature conditions is important to avoid the growth of harmful bacterias. If there is any growth of harmful bacterias, you have to throw it away and this would lead to increased food wastage.
5. Upsell Dish Containing Excess Ingredients in Menu
If there are any excess ingredients that are still fresh to consume, you may want to upsell the specific dish which contains the certain ingredients to customers. Additionally, you can include the specific dish as the upselling item of the day in the Menu Board and encourage your staff to try their best and recommend/upsell the dish to customers.
6. Check with Customers Regarding their Preferred Choice of Sides
Some customers may not want the sides offered (eg, fries) for the dish they ordered and they ended up not eating them. Staff should always check with customers if they are comfortable with the offered sides, otherwise staff can allow them to replace the sides with other options such as mixed greens or mashed potatoes, to prevent wastage of the sides. If customers strictly do not want any sides, then staff can inform the chef to prepare only the dish without any sides, to prevent any food from going to waste.
7. Always Ensure Accuracy of Order-Taking and Food Preparation According to Orders
There are many times whereby a customer is dissatisfied with his/her food and returns it to the kitchen. There are many possible reasons for this issue.
- The waiter/waitress has keyed in the wrong order, thus leading to wrong food prepared by the chef
Solution: Always ensure staff take orders correctly and make it a point for them to repeat the order to the customer before keying in the orders. Ensure that they double-check the orders they keyed-in before sending the order to the kitchen.
- The chef has overlooked the special instructions that come with the order
Solution: Always ensure that the chef does not overlook the special instructions which may lead to wrong orders.
- Inaccuracy Food Preparation due to factors (eg: Meat is overcooked due to poor tracking of time)
Solution: Work together with the head chef to supervise the chefs and oversee the operations of food preparation. Assign each chef to their specific duties and station.
- Change of Mind about Food Orders by the Customer
Solution: This situation cannot be helped as chefs have to prepare the new order of food that the customer requests for. However, for beverages, such as an unopened can of a soda, chefs can keep the soda in the fridge again for any new orders.
8. Use Leftover Ingredients/Food Efficiently
You can make dishes/dessert out of the leftovers that are still good to consume and come up with a special item on the menu. For example: Bread can be made into Bread Crumbs and Chicken Bones can be used to make Chicken Soup etc.
9. Maximize Your Profit by Reducing Wastage
The excess food in your restaurant can be turned into sales instead of wastage at the end of the day. Prior to a few hours before the end of your restaurant’s operations, you can hold a “Last 2-Hour Sale” and mark the selling price for 3 items at the price of 2. Promotions would attract many customers to purchase in bulk and may clear all your excess food that is to be thrown away. This is an efficient way to reduce food wastage and at the same time, increase the total revenue for your restaurant at the end of the day.
10. Donate / Give Out Excess Food
You can work with orphanages or charitable organizations and donate the excess food to them maybe once fortnightly.
Regarding the excess food or pastries that cannot be kept for 2 days or more, you can allow your employees to take the food back home in reward of their hard work instead of throwing them into the garbage. You can also give out the excess food to employees of neighbouring shops as well.
