How to Reduce Food Cost in Your Restaurant (Without Cutting Quality)

Food cost is one of the biggest expenses in any restaurant — typically 28–35% of revenue. Shaving even a few points goes straight to your bottom line. Here is how to control it without lowering quality.

Know Your Food Cost Percentage

Food cost percentage = (cost of ingredients used ÷ food sales) × 100. If you do not measure it weekly, you cannot manage it. A POS with inventory tracking calculates this automatically.

Tighten Inventory and Purchasing

• Count stock regularly and track variance between expected and actual usage.
• Standardise recipes so every plate uses the same portions and cost.
• Negotiate with suppliers and compare prices across vendors.
• Use purchase orders to avoid over-ordering perishable items.

Cut Waste

• Track spoilage and adjust par levels to demand
• Use FIFO (first in, first out) storage
• Repurpose trim and prep leftovers into specials
• Forecast demand so you prep the right quantities

Engineer Your Menu

Not every dish earns its place. Use sales and margin data to promote high-profit items, re-price or rework low-margin ones, and remove the dishes that just sit on the menu.

Let Technology Do the Math

Manual tracking is slow and error-prone. A connected POS, inventory, and reporting system shows real-time food cost, flags waste, and forecasts demand — so you act before money is lost.

TapFood ties sales to inventory automatically, giving you live food-cost and waste reports. Start controlling your costs today.