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How much food "waste" is considered "normal" in a professional kitchen?
I'm not completely inexperienced here. Used to work for a company that ran a string of culinary schools, every one of which has a teaching establishment associated with it. When the CA BOE came in to do a sales tax audit on our gross sales they tried nailing us based on the amount of raw materials purchased vs what was sold.
Ummm...it's a cooking school - there is going to be more waste than normal. I had statistics from the national restaurant association (20+ years ago) that showed the average amount of "waste" was at about 30% in a standard restaurant. Waste for purposes of the audit was defined as anything that didn't generate a cash sale , so it included staff meals, spoilage, donated inventory, as well as incorrectly prepared product.
Our school restaurants averaged about 60% waste, which I thought was pretty decent all things considered.
So fast forward to today where I'm asked this questions by someone managing a private dining club (he knows of my prior "experience"). He won't tell me what the waste amount is, but was wondering what was the culinary schools' baseline.
I told him what I knew, which is seriously out of date. I suggested he contact the NRA to see if they have stats as well.
But I'm curious what you folks see.
I'm not completely inexperienced here. Used to work for a company that ran a string of culinary schools, every one of which has a teaching establishment associated with it. When the CA BOE came in to do a sales tax audit on our gross sales they tried nailing us based on the amount of raw materials purchased vs what was sold.
Ummm...it's a cooking school - there is going to be more waste than normal. I had statistics from the national restaurant association (20+ years ago) that showed the average amount of "waste" was at about 30% in a standard restaurant. Waste for purposes of the audit was defined as anything that didn't generate a cash sale , so it included staff meals, spoilage, donated inventory, as well as incorrectly prepared product.
Our school restaurants averaged about 60% waste, which I thought was pretty decent all things considered.
So fast forward to today where I'm asked this questions by someone managing a private dining club (he knows of my prior "experience"). He won't tell me what the waste amount is, but was wondering what was the culinary schools' baseline.
I told him what I knew, which is seriously out of date. I suggested he contact the NRA to see if they have stats as well.
But I'm curious what you folks see.