How to Reduce Food Cost in Your Restaurant (Without Cutting Quality)

A 3-point drop in food cost % on ₹1 crore annual food sales = ₹3 lakh straight to your bottom line. Here's how to get there.

9 tactics that actually work

1. Recipe-cost every dish — Use our free Food Cost Calculator
2. Run a yield simulation — Test recipes at scale with the Yield Simulator
3. Weekly variance report — Theoretical vs actual usage
4. Vendor rate agreements — Lock top-10 items quarterly
5. Portion control — Weigh, don't eyeball
6. Waste audit — 30-day bin-log on top 20 SKUs
7. Menu engineering — Push high-margin, low-cost stars
8. Sub-recipe standardisation — Same sauce base across dishes
9. Real-time inventory — Auto-depletion via POS

Learn how inventory & cost control automates the boring parts.

Related: Restaurant accounting basics · KOT & KDS workflow guide