One mistake that many new restaurant owners make is spending too much. This is something you need to watch out for when you open your new restaurant, and there are many contributing factors. Food waste is one of the things that you need to consider. If you aren’t careful, you may end up spending a lot of money on food that’s never even used. Here are six ways to reduce food waste in your new restaurant.
Create Menus Around Fresh Ingredients
Many new restaurants aren’t able to use all of their fresh ingredients before they expire. You can keep this from happening by creating your menus around fresh ingredients. If you have a lot of a particular ingredient that you need to use up, make a daily special focused on it that you can entice your customers to try.
Do Inventory Often
If you don’t know what inventory you have, you will have a difficult time trying to keep track of what needs to be used and what needs to be bought. It’s a good idea to do inventory on a weekly basis. Refer to your inventory before you place any food orders.
Get Food Shaping Equipment
You may be wasting a lot of ground beef by making your hamburger patties too big. You can keep this from happening by purchasing hamburger moulder equipment. It will allow you to make hamburgers the perfect size every time. You can find similar products for other types of food. Knowing exactly how much of an ingredient goes into each menu item can also help you from running out of that ingredient early.
Keep Track of Expiration Dates
It’s not uncommon for food to expire before a restaurant can use it. This can create a lot of waste if you aren’t careful. Keep track of the expiration dates on all of your items, and use up foods that will be going bad soon. Many restaurants implement a first-in, first-out (FIFO) system for your food and ingredients. This means that the older ingredients are used before the newer ingredients.
Make Sure Your Refrigeration Is Maintained
Your refrigerator or freezer can stop working suddenly if you don’t maintain them regularly. This can create a lot of food waste as the contents can spoil quickly. Make it a priority to have your refrigeration maintained no matter what.
Donate Leftovers to Charity
There may be times where you will have large batches of food leftover or items that are about to expire that you simply can’t use. You can keep from wasting this food by donating leftovers to charity. Soup kitchens or food banks will be very appreciative of these items, and you can feel good about helping the community
Don’t make the same mistake that many new restaurants struggle with by wasting food. Be mindful about not letting food expire or go bad. Utilize tools to make sure that you are creating the right portions, and donate food you can’t use to charity. By reducing your food waste in your new restaurant, you can keep from wasting money as well.