Guide · Food & Beverage

Inventory management for restaurants: a practical guide

Last updated July 2026 · 6 min read

Restaurant inventory is harder than most retail because your stock expires. A case of produce that sits two days too long isn't slow-moving — it's gone. That makes three things matter more than anything else: ordering the right amount, using it in the right order, and seeing waste before it becomes a habit.

What to track (and how often)

• Par levels — the minimum quantity of each item you need on hand between deliveries. Set these and ordering becomes "top up to par," not guesswork.
• Perishables and high-value items — count these most often (proteins, dairy, produce, liquor). They drive both cost and waste.
• Expiry / use-by dates — so you rotate first-in-first-out and catch items before they turn.
• Waste events — every time something is thrown out, log what, how much, and why (spoilage, prep loss, over-portioning).

Food-cost percentage: the number that matters

Food-cost percentage tells you how much of every dollar of food sales goes to ingredients:

Food cost % = (cost of ingredients used ÷ food sales) × 100

Most restaurants aim for roughly 28–35%, depending on concept. The exact number matters less than the trend: when it drifts up, something is leaking — waste, theft, over-portioning, or a supplier quietly raising prices. You can't manage that if you only look once a quarter.

How to cut food waste

1. Set honest par levels. Most over-ordering comes from padding "just in case." Tighten pars and you buy less excess.
2. Rotate FIFO. First in, first out — always use the oldest stock first.
3. Track expiry dates. Get warned before items turn, not after.
4. Log every waste event with a reason and a cost. This is the step most kitchens skip — and it's the one that pays.
5. Review the waste report weekly. Fix the top one or two causes; repeat.

The math is stark: one spoiled case of a $70 ingredient a week is about $3,600 a year — out the back door, invisible, unless something adds it up.

Spreadsheets vs. software for restaurants

A spreadsheet can hold a count, but it won't warn you before a stockout, won't flag an ingredient nearing expiry, and won't tell you what last month's waste cost. For a single small kitchen, a spreadsheet can limp along. Once you have real turnover, multiple sections, or more than one location, purpose-built software pays for itself quickly — usually from the waste it surfaces alone.

How AIM helps restaurants

AIM's food & beverage setup is built for exactly this: par-level reordering, expiry and shelf-life tracking, a waste log that prices every event, and recipe/menu costing so you can see the food cost of each dish. It tracks stock across multiple locations and rolls it up, and it's free for a solo operator to start — $14/month for one kitchen. The point isn't more spreadsheets; it's seeing your food cost and your waste on one screen, before they eat your margin.