Perfecting Your Inventory: Make Your Inventory Work for You
A well-managed inventory is crucial to ensure that you never run out of essential ingredients or kitchen supplies. Not only does it help you streamline operations and maintain consistent quality in your dishes, but it also saves you money and reduces food waste.
For your inventory to be a useful tool, you will need to keep it easily accessible for your whole team and update it regularly as stocks change.
A digital inventory makes this easy: overwrite stock levels as many times as you want, record ‘Use By’ dates and batch numbers in a few clicks and store it all safely on the cloud. Make your own from scratch or check out our fully-optimised inventory tool on the Leafe app.
In this article, we’ll explore the different types of inventory in a food business and provide tips on how to categorise, manage, and optimise your inventory for better efficiency and profitability.
How should I categorise my inventory?
There are two types of items that your food business needs to track.
Food products should be recorded in one inventory and can be categorised into cold and dry goods. Non-food items such as kitchen equipment and utensils, cleaning supplies, and packaging materials, go into a second inventory.
You can tailor your food inventory to your business’ needs with our Leafe inventory tool, organising these further into Fresh, Frozen, Dry, Prepared and Beverages. You can also organise items based on their frequency of use or shelf life. For example, items that you use on a daily basis should be easily accessible, while those with shorter shelf life should be used first to avoid spoilage.
How should I manage my non-food inventory?
It’s important to perform regular inspections of your non-food items to ensure their functionality and safety.
A repair and replacement schedule should also be established to avoid unexpected breakdowns that could hinder your kitchen operations.
What is the difference between raw materials and finished goods in my inventory?
Some businesses categorise their food inventory into Raw Materials and Finished Goods. Raw materials refer to the ingredients used to make dishes, while finished goods are the prepared dishes that are ready for service.
It’s essential to monitor the inventory levels of both to avoid running out of ingredients or overstocking already-made dishes. Having a well-managed finished goods inventory also helps you monitor the popularity of certain dishes and adjust your menu accordingly.
In Conclusion:
Running a food business is a lot to juggle, however, by applying best practices in categorising, managing, and optimising your inventory, you can streamline operations, reduce waste, and improve profitability.
When we designed Leafe to centralise your business’s operations, we knew that an intuitive, efficient inventory system was essential. Test out our full app for free, no automatic payments at the end of your trial, and take the hassle out of inventory management forever.
Remember, an organised inventory is the foundation of a successful kitchen, and a successful kitchen leads to a thriving food business.
