Waste and yield: the gap between the kilo you buy and the kilo you serve

Two numbers never match in any restaurant: what you bought, and what reached the plate. The distance between them is shrinkage, and you either manage it or it manages you.

First: yield is measured, not looked up

Published tables give you averages. Your yield depends on your supplier, your knives and your team’s skill.

A ten-minute test:

1. Weigh the ingredient as purchased → gross weight.
2. Clean and cut it exactly as you do in service.
3. Weigh what is usable → net weight.
4. yield = net ÷ gross.

Example: 5 kg of beef fillet, 3.7 kg after trimming → 74% yield.

Repeat three times on different days and take the average. Store the figure on the ingredient itself, because every recipe using it will be costed from that number.

Second: four kinds of waste, four different fixes

Most restaurants attack the first kind (purchasing) and leave the other three — even though the last three are the ones you can actually reduce without negotiating with anyone.

Third: log waste as it happens

The only rule that matters: what is not recorded is not measured, and what is not measured does not fall.

Make logging three taps on the device already in the kitchen: item, quantity, reason. Anything longer will not happen during a rush, and the shrinkage will go back to hiding inside stocktake variance.

Fourth: portion control is the cheapest lever

Before negotiating 3% with a supplier, look at your kitchen:

• A fixed-size portion spoon for every sauce.
• A dedicated measuring cup for rice and pasta.
• A small scale on the prep line for high-value items.
• Reference photos of the finished plate on the wall.

Ten extra grams of cheese on a pizza sold 200 times a day is 2 kg a day — around 60 kg a month, given away.

Fifth: report shrinkage in money, not weight

“We wasted 18 kg” moves nobody. “We wasted EGP 4,300, and 62% of it was one item” changes a procedure tomorrow.

When ingredient prices live in the same system that records waste — as in GoSufra, where inventory is linked to recipes and to waste logging — the waste report becomes money, sorted by reason, item and branch.

Half an hour a week

Give thirty minutes a week to three questions:

1. What are the five costliest waste lines?
2. What is the dominant reason for each?
3. What single procedure are we changing this week?

That is all. Do not try to fix everything at once — one change a week compounds into a visible difference in three months.