What is wastage?

Every tray of unsold pastries in the bin was bought, prepared and paid for in staff time. Wastage is the cost of stock that never turned into a sale, and in food businesses it is often the largest cost nobody measures.

The formula

Wastage % = value of stock wasted ÷ value of stock used × 100

Count waste at cost price — what you paid, not what you would have charged.

A worked example

In a week your kitchen used £2,700 of food and wrote off £189: out-of-date dairy, a dropped tray, prep that was not used.

£189 ÷ £2,700 = 7%. That is £9,800 a year at the same rate.

Where it comes from

• Spoilage — food that goes out of date before it is used.
• Over-production — more prepped than sold.
• Preparation — trimmings and peelings beyond what the recipe expects.
• Mistakes — wrong orders, returned dishes, breakages.
• Unexplained loss — the gap a stocktake finds and nobody recorded.

Why it matters

Waste raises your food cost percentage without a single price changing. Recording it, with a reason, is what turns it into something you can fix.

How to reduce it

1. Record every write-off with a reason, every time.
2. Set par levels so you are not over-ordering.
3. Prep to forecast, using your sales by hour and by day.
4. Rotate stock — first in, first out.

Tracking it in DUMA

Write stock off with a reason as it happens. The Waste & loss report shows what was written off, by reason and by item, so the same problem showing up week after week is easy to spot.