How to indent for store item to save food cost?

This post is part of the series on 31 days to better Food Cost in your Restaurant.

In this series, we will deep dive into the steps to ensure that we save food cost in your restaurant and improve profitability.

In this post let us see how to indent for store item to save food cost.

In most restaurants, you will have a a daily market list or you will have daily purchase of vegetable and meat. However to save freight cost, you may have a store of fast moving non perishable item where you keep some basic items.

Now it is entirely possible that you do not maintain a dry store as well and look at purchasing everything on a daily basis. However that situation is rare.

In order to be careful while you indent for store item to save food cost or while using stock transfer, here are few things to keep in mind.

Previous day stock in hand.

This is the starting point for the food cost control. Check you entire kitchen for what you have already before making the list.

If you have some perishable item like meat or vegetables, follow the FIFO method. (First in, First out.)

Create daily special menu out of those ingredients, before you plan your purchase or store requisition.

Check for reservation and booking for the next day

Remember in this post we spoke about the importance of forecasting. This is where we will use that forecast to determine how much we need to order or indent for the day.

Your reservation diary and your forecast will help you to determine how much stock you need to purchase.

One thing to remember is that food is highly perishable in nature, so the better you get at forecast, the less you will have to face food spoilage issues in your kitchen.

Check near to expiry items

If you have a good purchasing software with the ability to note date of expiry, you should use this feature efficiently. A report that tells you what will expire in your store in the near term.

This will also help you move your items from store before they are past their best before date.

Even if your software does not tell this, you can implement this in two ways.

• Colour code your materials on receipt to identify them visually
• Update an excel sheet with materials expiry date

With these simple tips, you can manage your indent properly and keep your food cost in control.