Guide
Waste & Wastage: Making the Wastage Sheet Earn Its Place
By David Holden · Stock Auditing since 1992 – Allied Domecq, Hilton, Marco Pierre White, RedCat Hospitality Ltd.
The waste happening on day one is still happening on day thirty – if nobody reads the wastage sheet until the stocktake.
Most kitchens and bars have a wastage sheet. Very few use it properly. This guide covers what waste is really costing, how to record it so the numbers mean something, how to use them every day, and how to stop the waste before it starts. It brings together everything I’ve written on it.
PART ONE - WHAT WASTE IS COSTING
How much does food waste cost a hospitality business?
Around £10,000 per outlet a year, according to WRAP - Typically 2–4% of revenue. On restaurant margins of 4–7%, that can be the difference between a profitable year and a loss.
Two-thirds happens before the customer. 45% of food waste comes from preparation and 21% from spoilage. Only 34% is left on the plate. Most of it happens in your kitchen and your storage, so most of it can be prevented.
PART TWO - WASTE, WASTAGE, SHRINKAGE
What’s the difference between waste, wastage and shrinkage?
Waste is the loss itself. Wastage is that loss written down. Shrinkage is whatever’s still missing once sales and recorded wastage are accounted for.
The label matters for finding the cause. It doesn’t change what you do today. Whatever you call it, the number is wrong and it needs to come down, so measure it properly and talk about it every day - Make it important.
PART THREE - IS YOUR SHEET WORKING?
How do you know if a wastage sheet is working?
It isn’t whether it exists or gets filled in. It’s whether anyone reads it today and changes something because of it.
I’ve seen it go three ways. One chef said he had no waste at all - A blank sheet every day, and an unexplained GP gap every month. One kitchen had a clipboard with ten-day gaps, then a flurry of entries written in one sitting from memory. Those sites are almost always the worst on margin. The third recorded everything, in real time, and a manager reviewed it. Those sites ran close to their theoretical GP.
A WASTAGE SHEET THAT WORKS
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It’s filled in every day, at the time - Not afterwards.
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Quantities are weighed or counted, not estimated.
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Someone reads it and asks what it’s telling them.
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When something keeps appearing, corrective changes are made.
All four and it’s the most valuable document in the kitchen. Fewer than four and you’re not managing waste, you’re just documenting it.
PART FOUR - WEIGHT IT, DON'T GUESS IT
Why are high wastage figures often wrong?
Because they’ve usually been guessed. A chef who writes “500g fish trimming” without putting it on the scale isn’t recording wastage - He’s estimating it.
An estimate nobody challenges looks like control without being control. The gap between theoretical and actual GP is still there; it just gets explained away by a number that was never reliable. Weigh or count it when it’s thrown away – not at the end of the shift, and not when someone remembers.
PART FIVE - READ IT EVERY DAY
How often should the wastage sheet be reviewed?
Every day. Reviewed at month end, it tells you what went wrong over thirty days. Reviewed daily, it tells you what went wrong yesterday and in time to stop it today.
Every line is a reason, and a conversation: why did we prep 4kg of this and sell 1.5kg? Why did that go off before we used it? That’s not a blame conversation, it’s a learning one.
Look for patterns. The same dish keeps appearing, the recipe or the order needs changing. The same product keeps spoiling, order less or take it off the menu. The same shift or the same person, that’s something else. One site kept binning breakfast pastries every week. The sheet showed it clearly; it just took someone reading it to see it was one person using the wrong oven timer. The fix cost nothing.
PART SIX - STOP IT BEFORE IT STARTS
How do you reduce wastage?
Prep and order for what you’ll actually sell. Check your bookings, look at the forecast, what’s your pickup like? Then prep around those numbers so you don’t make too much in the first place.
A bar was losing 3–4 litres of juice a day. Nobody was stealing it. The team were decanting pineapple juice three or four days ahead to make service easier and it was going off. The forecast that would have told them how much to prep was there. Nobody looked at it.
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Prep to covers. Prepping for 200 on a Tuesday that does 140 creates waste before anyone orders.
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Order to the forecast, not last week’s figures or a feel for how busy it looks.
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Keep close to your sales mix daily. You can see which dishes are selling and which aren't and adjust prep accordingly.
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Cut the dishes that don’t earn their place, especially ones needing fresh ingredients prepped daily.
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Use key ingredients across several dishes, so a quiet service doesn’t leave stock with nowhere to go.
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Build your specials around what needs to move today.
PART SEVEN - WHEN WASTE HIDES SOMETHING ELSE
What if the wastage sheet is covering for something?
Count the product that’s worrying you. Today, quietly, without telling anyone. Don’t wait for the stocktake.
If steaks are going missing, count them. Forty in the walk-in at close. Count again when the kitchen opens, and again at the end of service. Correct at close but wrong at opening tells you when it’s happening. Correct at opening but wrong by the end of the shift tells you who to look at. A covert count usually turns a suspicion into a fact within a day or two.
What’s it worth to you?
In a well-run kitchen, the gap between theoretical and actual food cost is 1–2%. In a poorly controlled one it’s 5–8% or more. On £30,000 a month of food spend, that’s £1,500–£2,400 a month you can’t account for.
PART EIGHT
Common questions
What’s the difference between waste and wastage?
Waste is the physical loss. Wastage is the same loss, recorded. Unrecorded waste ends up as unexplained variance.
How often should the wastage sheet be checked?
Every day. A monthly review only tells you what you’ve already lost.
What should food cost be?
Typically you should be aiming for 28–35% of revenue. If it’s creeping above that, something is leaking.
Where does most food waste come from?
Preparation (45%) and spoilage (21%) - Two-thirds of it before food reaches the customer.
RELATED GUIDES
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What the numbers mean, and when a variance is a problem.
Deliveries, Ordering & Stockholding
Goods in, empties out, and the stock sitting on your shelf.