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Restaurant Inventory Management: Tips to Cut Costs & Waste

 


Managing the inventory of a restaurant is a serious challenge. If this is a battle you have to fight day after day, we feel your pain! Even for an experienced professional in the restaurant industry, having enough of the right ingredients and supplies on hand at all times isn’t easy.

Most of what counts as inventory in a restaurant has a relatively short shelf life. It’s not like running a bookstore where the inventory can just sit there as long as it takes to get sold – if food isn’t sold quickly, it is wasted, and money is lost.

As you continue to optimize your inventory management practices, we’d like to lend a hand by highlighting some of the key tips that you can use to stay on track.

Why Effective Inventory Management is Vital

We’ve already mentioned how money is lost when inventory management isn’t under control. You already know the bad feeling that comes with tossing out expired food - it feels like you are throwing money directly into the garbage.

But it gets worse. Not only is money lost when without proper control over your inventory, but the two issues below will pop up, as well.

Kitchen Operations Challenge

There’s so much work to be done on a busy night in a restaurant kitchen. Simply keeping up with all of the orders that are coming in is hard enough – you don’t want to make it any harder by dealing with inventory struggles.

For example, if the kitchen staff is constantly having to search for extra stock because key ingredients are running low, the rate of dishes going out to tables will slow down. At the same time, if the kitchen runs out of things and has to figure out workable substitutions on the fly, people will be waiting longer to get their food, and customer satisfaction will drop.

Poor Customer Experience

It’s never a good look for a restaurant to have to cross items off the menu because the necessary ingredients aren’t in stock in the kitchen. If that has been happening more than you would like to acknowledge, taking steps toward improving inventory control will be a big improvement.

Key Steps to Implement an Inventory Management System

By now, you get the point – inventory management matters. So, what are we going to do about it? These three steps are sure to put you on track in no time.

Use a Quality Inventory Management System

Many restaurants are still doing things the “old-fashioned” way. Upgrading to a quality inventory management system is a game changer. Making the investment in an advanced inventory management software that tracks stock levels in real time will solve many of the problems you’ve been dealing with for years. If you are still struggling with high error rates in your inventory counts, difficulty tracking waste, and other frustrating issues, new technology is in order.

There will be an upfront cost for this purchase, of course, and it will come with a learning curve to get your entire team up to speed on the system. That will all be more than worth it in the long run. Be sure to find inventory software that integrates with your POS system to make things as streamlined as possible.

Set Par Levels for Your Business

Par levels are a fundamental concept in inventory management. The way it works is simple – instead of restocking items when they run out, you set a “par level” that triggers a restock before you are out of the item.

These levels are based on your average usage of various products over a certain period of time, such as a week. For instance, you’ll know how much butter you typically use in a week, so you’ll have a par level set that gives you plenty of margin for error when restocking and ensures that you never use it all up.

Monitor Vendor Performance

You can’t always trust every vendor to fulfill their promises and deliver on time. It’s understandable if there is a delay from time to time, but if those delays keep happening with the same vendors over and over, you might need to look for a replacement.

It’s not only timely delivery that you’ll want to watch with vendor performance but quality, as well. If some of what is delivered is not good enough to serve to customers, it might as well not be delivered at all.

Best Practices for Restaurant Inventory Control

The steps above will put a great system in place and make it less likely that inventory issues will be faced. In fact, you’ll already feel less stress over inventory control knowing that your system is well under control.

That doesn’t mean you can declare victory just yet, however. There are also some best practices that should be implemented to make sure your overall system lives up to its potential.

Enforce the FIFO Method

In the world of inventory control, FIFO stands for First In, First Out. Many types of businesses use FIFO when controlling inventory, but nowhere is it more important than in the restaurant business.

Your inventory is starting to spoil as soon as it is delivered, so using the oldest stock first is essential to limit spoilage. Proper labeling of items is the easiest way to make sure the staff is using the oldest stock first at all times.

Train the Staff

It would be a mistake to assume that everyone on your staff understands the importance of inventory management and what it means for the business. A veteran chef or cook in your kitchen will know why it matters, but someone getting their first job in the industry will need to learn the ropes.

Among the many other things you train your staff on, make sure everyone is introduced to the basics of inventory management. From where and how food should be stored, to how the inventory is tracked, a little knowledge goes a long way.

Conduct Food Waste Analysis

There is some bad news that needs to be confronted when talking about restaurant inventory management – it will never be perfect. You are always going to waste at least some food, as that is just the nature of the business.

You don’t have to accept the status quo, however. By regularly analyzing what is wasted, you can make adjustments to your processes and continue to cut down on whatever waste is occurring.

Partner with Responsible Training to Prepare Your Team for Success

We hope the ideas above already have the wheels in your mind spinning – what changes are you going to make to save money and deliver better service to your customers? Even small tweaks to your process have the potential to make a big difference.

As you continue to build on your valuable experience and grow in this industry, you can never have enough knowledge or encounter enough ideas. Our blog offers many different resources to explore, including posts on food safety, training servers, and much more.

We Make Compliance Easy

While you improve inventory management in your restaurant, also take a moment to consider your employee training process. Keep everyone on the team compliant and prepared to deliver great service by connecting with Responsible Training today.


Tags: Training Manager, Restaurant Owner, Operations

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