Guest
Guest
Nov 14, 2025
12:04 AM
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For a Cork restaurant or cafe owner, the kitchen is the engine room of your business. It's also the place where profits are most easily lost.
Unlike a bar's "wet stock," which is relatively easy to count (a bottle is a bottle), food is a completely different challenge. It's perishable. It gets chopped, prepped, cooked, and portioned. It arrives as raw ingredients and leaves as a composed dish.
This complexity makes it incredibly difficult to track your true food costs. And if you don't know your true costs, you are flying blind.
A professional food stocktake gives you the data you need to take control. Here are 7 ways you can start controlling your food costs today, all of which are validated by our expert food stocktaking services .
1. Master Your Menu Costing (The Foundation)
This is the non-negotiable starting point. You must know, down to the gram, what it costs to produce every single dish on your menu. This includes the main ingredients, the garnish, the oil it's cooked in, and the pinch of salt.
Most owners guess at this. But when the price of chicken goes up 10%, does your dish price reflect that? Without accurate menu costing, you could be selling your most popular dish at a loss.
2. Implement Strict Portion Control (The Execution)
Once your dish is costed, you must ensure the kitchen produces it consistently. Portion control is everything. This isn't about being "stingy"; it's about being consistent.
· Use Scales: A "handful" of chips is not a measure. 200g is.
· Use Portioning Spoons: For sauces, purees, and side dishes.
· Prep It: Pre-portioning meat, fish, and cheese during morning prep ensures speed and consistency during a busy service.
A stocktake reveals when portion control is failing. We can see if you used 120kg of chicken but your sales only account for 100kg. That 20kg difference is your portioning problem.
3. Track Your Kitchen Waste (The Obvious Loss)
Every kitchen has waste, but is it recorded? You need a "Waste Sheet" in a visible, accessible place.
· A chef burns a steak? Write it down.
· A server drops a plate? Write it down.
· A punnet of berries goes mouldy? Write it down.
This recorded waste is then deducted from your usage. A stocktake will show you two numbers: your recorded waste and your unexplained waste. The unexplained waste is where your profit is hiding.
4. Optimise Your Supplier Ordering (The Cash Flow)
Over-ordering is a cash flow killer. That €1,000 in your bank account is useful. That €1,000 of extra produce sitting in your cold room is a liability. It's cash you can't use, and it's at high risk of spoiling.
Use the "First In, First Out" (FIFO) rule for everything. Organise your walk-in fridge and dry store so that older stock is always used first. A good stocktake report shows you your "stock on hand" and your "average usage," allowing you to order precisely what you need, and no more.
5. Analyse Your Prep Waste
How much of that €10/kg beef fillet is being thrown away as trimmings? How much of the potato is lost during peeling?
This "prep waste" needs to be factored into your menu costing (see point 1). A skilled kitchen team knows how to minimise this—for example, by using beef trimmings for a staff meal or veg peels for a stock. An unskilled team is throwing profit in the bin.
6. Analyse Your Sales Mix (What's Selling vs. What's Profitable)
Your EPOS system is a goldmine. You need to know your "Stars" (high profit, high sales) and your "Ploughs" (low profit, high sales).
Your stocktake data, combined with this sales mix, is the key to Menu Engineering. The goal is to sell more "Stars" and fix your "Ploughs" (by either increasing the price or decreasing the cost/portion).
7. Use a Professional Stocktaker (The Validator)
You can (and should) implement all these things. But how do you know if they're working?
A professional food stocktaker is the external validator. We come in with no bias, count everything accurately, analyse your invoices and sales, and produce a definitive report. We tie all 6 of these points together and show you your true food GP.
We can pinpoint if your waste is too high, your portions are off, or your menu is badly costed. We turn your Cork kitchen into a profit centre, not a cost centre.
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