Revolutionise the way you take stock & inventory | Kitchen CUT

Stock taking and inventory is one of the necessary evils of the F&B industry.  A time consuming and arduous task that, when done properly, will make your business run smoothly and profitably, yet remains a drain on valuable time and resources.  However there is a way to improve accuracy and reduce the administration time of the whole process.  Here, Michelin Starred Chef, John Wood, explains how….

Getting your stock and inventory management under control

Whether you run a restaurant, a chain of hotels, a catering company, a group of pubs or a small cafe, whatever the type of food and drink business you’re involved with and no matter what size, you will need you to take stock/ inventory of items on a regular basis to allow you to calculate an accurate margin for the food and drink that you sell.

Of course, you’ll find some businesses that don’t take a food stock or inventory count.  I often hear businesses say:

“The chef manages the stock.”

“When we did it the number was nearly always the same.”

“It’s never accurate as the chef just guesses all the stock, sauces and Mis en Place/ bulk production costs.”

However, taking stock / inventory on food and beverage does a number of things for your business:

1. It creates team awareness of the cost of the items they are working with everyday.

2. It ensures that there is good stock rotation of perishable or even medium/long life products.

3. It highlights products that have slow turnover/ usage, so that teams can look at new dishes, cocktails/ mocktails to use these products up and generate some revenue from this dead stock.

4. It ensures that you have accurate figures for your GP/Costs and margins so you can respond to this each week/month.

How should we count bulk production and prepared products?

Most businesses that take food stock will look at a 18 litre/ pint bucket of tomato sauce and just estimate a cost of around £/€ 6 or $10.  In some cases, they may even open up a fridge or cool room, look at its entire contents and estimate the total!  As a chef and operator, this method of stock taking terrifies me, considering that these products could make up 30% of stock value.  It amazes me that in hospitality we do nothing else (knowingly at least!) to 70% accuracy, yet so many of us do so on something as critical as stock and inventory.  With Kitchen CUT you don’t have to do this anymore.

• With all your sub recipes and your dishes in the system, linked to live pricing, you can now carry out 100% accurate stock takes every time.

• With Kitchen CUT’s unique system you can set up templates for various areas of your business ONLY with the products you use and in the order in which you store them.

• You can take stock/inventory from left to right, from top to bottom and you can move items easily in the system.

• NOW stock taking and Inventory counts take 50% less time with 100% accuracy.

• NOW it is worth doing.

The same efficiency for beverages too

Taking stock/inventory on beverage is slightly less complex, but hugely time consuming when you’re trying to find 100’s of products on an Excel stock list or searching alphabetically trying to work out how those Russian vodkas are spelt!  When trying to keep track of pre-mixes and syrups that the barman has made for his new cocktail list, it’s commonplace to end up just guessing a value.

With Kitchen CUT that way of stocktaking is over.

Now you can set your bars up in an easy to use template to display in the order they appear on your bar or in your storeroom. The simple to use, intuitive software lets you easily move them to a different location and you can grab the pre-mixes and syrups from your sub recipes, allowing for accurate monitoring with no guesswork involved.

• No more writing on paper.

• No more double or triple entry of data to get a final figure.

• No more spending hours searching for products on long lists.

• No more 70% accuracy rates on inventory figures.

• No more guesswork.

Why use Kitchen CUT?

At Kitchen CUT we challenge the norm. We develop and create cutting edge technology, providing unique ways to reduce your admin time.

• REDUCE time spent on stock taking and inventory counts by up to 50%.

• STOP spending valuable time on administration.

• START doing the things that improve customer and team satisfaction.

• START controlling your costs.

You can get more information about Kitchen CUT by emailing support@kitchencut.com or calling +44 (0) 330 113 0050

You can register for a free trial here.