According to ReFED, 54 million tons of food waste is recorded every year in the US. This enormous amount has made food waste an international crisis that needs to be addressed urgently. Moreover, the food industry continues to record losses unknowingly because of it.
Envision this: it does not seem much when your employees dispose of those meat trimmings or a lettuce head. But when they do this daily, you will record huge amounts of food waste that will cut your profitability in a week or month.
Thanks to better inventory management, it provides you with details of all your purchases and the output. As a result, you can effortlessly identify the point of product waste and solve it before it inhibits your business’ growth.
Want to learn more about how better inventory management can help you minimize food waste? Let’s delve in!
How Can You Make Your Inventory Management Better?
Food inventory management entails the tracking of perishable items to measure profitability, food cost, and prevent loss. It also shows the different supplies and finances that an establishment uses.
The tracking gives you the exact quantity of supplies your restaurant receives, what is dispatched from the kitchen, and the leftovers. You can then find out why you have those specific numbers or quantities.
For instance, when you record an inventory loss, you need to get to the root of the problem before it eats into your profits, gradually affecting your business. Some of the reasons that may lead to such losses include spillage, staff meals, theft, or employees’ mistakes.
Put another way; food inventory management is like your restaurant’s diary. If you keep it well, you get incredible results; if you don’t, it messes up your investment. Doing it right produces details of all earnings and losses for every shift, day, week, month, and year.
So, how can you make your food inventory management better? By getting suitable food inventory management software.
What Is Food Inventory Management System?
Also known as a kitchen inventory management system or restaurant inventory management system, the food inventory management system is a centralized platform. It helps to strategize, manage, and automate all the facets of the inventory management processes.
How does it accomplish all these? By offering you the insightful information that your restaurant needs to perform the following significant tasks:
- Making more tactical decisions in the future
- Making better ordering decisions
- Creating a more profitable menu
- Minimizing food waste
Consequently, getting inventory management software compatible with your recipe and formulations, ordering processes, and invoice systems enhance your inventory management. Reason?
It allows you to inspect the costs of goods sold, stock valuation, and trends. Moreover, you can consider using a system that can allow you to do physical inventory counts on a tablet or smartphone for convenience.
How Does Inventory Management Software Minimize Food Waste?
Food inventory management software provides full control and visibility of the inventory management process. As a result, you identify losses caused by poor inventory control, developing apt solutions.
Below is how better inventory management can help minimize food waste:
1. Complete View into Inventory Levels
Food inventory management solution consolidates and automates all inventory management processes and data. Some of them include:
Sitting Inventory
The sitting inventory is the number of products a business has in its restaurants. Typically, it is measured in physical amount or dollars’ worth. However, to avoid confusion in the future, you should choose one unit and stick to it.
Inventory Usage
As the name suggests, inventory usage computes the dollars’ worth or amount of product a business uses over a specified time.
Food inventory management software also provides the food cost percentage and a lot of insightful data. All these provide clear visibility to your restaurant to make strategic inventory decisions that will propel profitable growth.
2. Detailed Variance Reports
Product wastage decreases your profitability, but your restaurant cannot identify whether and where there is food shrinkage without a clear outlook. But thanks to food inventory management software, you get a detailed variance to help solve this.
So, what is a variance?
A variance is a number that expounds the difference between a product’s cost and its usage cost. It shows how much of the product is unaccounted for.
For instance, if your business spends $100 on raw chicken within a certain period in the inventory levels but the Point of Sale (POS) states $50 sold, the variance is -$50.
With such a report, your restaurant can easily identify the products experiencing food waste. You can then utilize this information to effect internal changes that will reduce the waste of specific products.
3. Actionable Insights
Do you know that over-ordering is among the leading causes of food spoilage? When you order more inventory than you need to meet your customers’ demands, you will experience food waste. The higher the surplus amount, the more waste you will have.
Food inventory management software informs you what inventory you need, at what time, and how much of it you should order. In addition, you can use inventory usage data and purchase reports to get your restaurant’s periodic automatic replacement that will optimize your orders.
That’s how better inventory management can help minimize food waste in your business. Whether running few or chain restaurants, you can pinpoint the different causes of food waste and stop getting losses.
So, if you are in the food business and using average inventory management approaches, it is time you switched to a better solution. The market has great deals to offer you to ensure your business thrives even amidst the numerous challenges faced by the food industry.
You also don’t have to put up with constant estimations that are inaccurate. Inventory management software can help you control food waste and reduce losses by informing you what items you need to ship or produce at what time.
Contact MIBAR for Better Inventory Management!
Looking for inventory management software that can help you minimize food waste? MIBAR experts got you covered with excellent options! We understand the different challenges that food and beverages companies encounter and, therefore, are committed to offering premium products and unrivaled services that will propel your business success.
You do not have to bear with human error anymore; we can provide a fitting solution.
To learn more about our products and services, contact us today!
