Managing a restaurant’s inventory is complex. You need to strike the right balance to avoid losing sales and prevent losses that impact profit margins.
Clément Renard
7
Apr 2025
Effective management of stock levels is therefore crucial to ensuring customer satisfaction and team peace of mind. Here are the common mistakes to avoid and the best practices to adopt to optimize your operational management.
Knowing what to order and when to order it to avoid stock-outs and/or waste is the challenge restaurant owners face every day.
Ordering too many products, especially those with a " best before " date, increases the risk of food waste and weighs on the food cost. Final stock becomes a problem ofstorage space and tied-up working capital, reducing your restaurant's profitability.
Poor stock rotation and low turnover rates also lead to costly overstocking, particularly for expensive ingredients such as meat and seafood.
On the other hand, if you don't order enough, you risk running out of stock in the middle of a service. The result: loss of sales, a drop in your rating on delivery platforms and disappointment among loyal customers.
The management of supplier orders, often entrusted to the restaurant manager, the head chef, or sometimes even the founder of the chain, is a key stage: the slightest error can have a direct impact on the profitability of the establishment.
Forgetfulness, quantity errors, fear of stock-outs... It generally takes several years' experience for a manager to master stock forecasting, understand variations in footfall, anticipate the success of dishes and adjust sales volumes, particularly for deliveries. In a context of talent shortage and high turnover in the restaurant industry, relying solely on individual experience represents a major risk for inventory management and profitability.
The key, therefore, is to anticipate and accurately place orders, so as to supply just what's needed just in time, and thus maximize profitability.
At Inpulse, we’ve developed an artificial intelligence capable of predicting future raw material needs by anticipating sales. Sales forecasts are provided by day, by finished product, and based on all factors that influence them :• Weather conditions • Calendar events (Valentine's Day, school holidays, religious holidays, etc.) • Sports events (Champions League, Six Nations Tournament, etc.) • Local promotions in your restaurant.
Using its sales forecasts, our inventory management software can make order recommendations based on stock status, shelf life, and the conditions of each supplier. Regardless of the manager's experience, Inpulse ensures a just-in-time supply chain to help you control your margins.
Read the testimonial from Tiphaine, manager of the Gruppomimo restaurant, who relies on Inpulse to place her daily supplier orders. Or make an appointment with an Inpulse expert for a free demonstration.
Markdown is the difference between actual and theoretical stock, i.e., products that should remain in stock after deducting those that have been sold. Markdown can be measured through regular inventory counts It shines a light on this sort of ‘black box' of raw materials that go missing for a variety of reasons such as :
Knowing your markdown or consumption variance is the starting point for identifying and correcting inventory management anomalies. At Inpulse, we recommend that our customers carry out a weekly inventory of their top 10 products: those are sold the most and have the most expensive ingredients. In this way, you can concentrate your inventory count on the most sensitive products and space out the inventories of other non-food products with lower turnover.
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Once the discrepancy between actual and theoretical stock levels is known, the investigation stage begins, which consists of checking whether it could be due to overconsumption in the kitchen. To dissociate pouring from over-consumption of products, everyone needs easy access to technical data sheets. They detail to the gram the composition of each dish or intermediate product recipe, and are the foundation of a restaurant's profitability.
It's crucial to check that actual consumption corresponds to the recipe sheets, to identify any overdosage, and to put in place the training, equipment (such as grammage tools) and controls needed to standardize dishes across your restaurants.
In her testimonial, Kamal Zaoui, founder of the Lüks Kebab restaurant chain says : "We have a food cost to meet, and to achieve it, we rationalise all our dishes so we have the same proportions in the restaurant in the13th and the one in the 10th arrondissements of Paris. Inpulse lets us keep an eye on material costs. I look mainly at meat, which accounts for around 30% of food costs. When there's a discrepancy I can intervene and ask the cooks to trim back, because just 30 grams more on each sandwich, for example, over a week can be catastrophic for us."
With the proliferation of substitute products and the incessant price changes since the Ukrainian crisis, it's no longer possible to skip the incoming inspection stage. With more and more errors being made, we recommend checking goods delivered and keeping a record of any problems: substitute product, defective product, quantity, price difference…
When it comes to invoicing, your accountant will need your help to ensure that the supplier invoices match the quantities received and to avoid overpayments.
By centralising your orders and credit requests in a SaaS solution like Inpulse, you gain accuracy and save valuable time.
Access to the history of all sales and stock data allows you to compare changes in losses over time and suggest ways of improving. Are there any anomalies in stock returns due to unusual breakage, theft or poor SLED management ?
Management control, finance and purchasing managers need to analyse discrepancies and the reality of supplier relations in detail (order volume, breakage, price fluctuations, credit note requests, etc., both overall and by establishment) in order to adjust and negotiate annual contracts.
By automating your business forecasts, supplier orders and material cost calculations with Inpulse, you avoid costly errors. No need to wait for your accountant to compile data at the end of the month. Inpulse provides real-time access to your restaurant chain's key performance indicators: sales, gross margin, material cost, consumption variance... You can analyse by outlet, pilot your business from headquarters, and react at the same pace as the price fluctuations you face.
Ask for an appointment with an expert today to find out what Inpulse can do for you.
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