Cost Control
How do you reduce food cost without cutting quality?
Direct answer
Reduce food cost without cutting quality by tightening portions, reducing waste, improving prep levels, cross-utilizing ingredients, renegotiating key purchases, and reworking recipes before switching to cheaper ingredients.
Key points
- Most savings come from consistency and waste control, not lower-quality ingredients.
- Over-portioning is a silent price discount on every plate.
- Ingredient cross-utilization reduces spoilage and purchasing complexity.
What to do next
- 1Audit portions against written recipes for the highest-cost proteins.
- 2Start a daily waste log and review it weekly.
- 3Simplify ingredients that appear in only one low-volume dish.