Looking to find ways on how to manage your inventory? Having difficulties in tracking your food inventory? Look no further as we are going to guide on some of the smart ways by which you can manage the food inventory of your restaurant with ease. Food business nowadays thrives on how well you can manage your inventory to increase profit, it is a very competitive market where inventory management plays a crucial role that can either make or break your restaurant. For a restaurant to sustain the business keeping a daily check of stock and inventory is a key to success along with other aspects such as marketing and smooth operations. Inventory basically consists of all the ingredients that are required to prepare a dish or drink and keeping track of these ingredients is important so that overordering can be avoided. The following are some smart ways to manage food inventory.
POS Software
Point of sale software is really important to run a restaurant smoothly. Just how basic commercial kitchen equipment is necessary to start a restaurant, same way a POS software will work wonders for your restaurant. With POS software in place, you are not required to hire extra staff just to manage inventory. Plus, POS software will help in daily restaurant operation. It also makes inventory management a breeze.
Staff Training
Training your staff is another important aspect when it comes to inventory management as staff can give you feedback on what to order less and what items are needed to be ordered more often. You can also train your staff to fully understand and use the POS software to maximize its effectiveness.
Limiting Access
Some restaurants allow staff to eat food made on the premises made with ingredients from the stock while others do not allow to. Restricting certain staff to certain locations of the restaurant, for example, the cool room, you can manage the inventory in such a way that the ingredients that are being used are only used to prepare dishes for the customers. For instance, only allow the head chef and manager to gain access to the inventory room.
First in, First out Method
Labeling the materials and ingredients in the stock room is mandatory in most of the countries. Keeping track of dates as to when the material has arrived will help the chefs to avoid using the ingredients that are latest. In doing so will help last your ingredients much longer and avoid reordering.
Keeping stock according to the Menu
In a restaurant menu is something that often changes from time to time depending on the season. For instance, soups are introduced in the winter season whereas cold fruity drinks are made mostly in summer. Keeping track of seasonal changes along with the changes in the menu, you can order supplies only so that it would last for a certain period of time. This way you can avoid ordering ingredients that would not sell. Also, you can make some changes in the menu to order fruits and vegetables that are seasonal.
