The short answer
Recipe based stock control means every plate, cup or cake has a written recipe with exact quantities, so you know how much of each ingredient should leave your store when it sells. At the end of the day or week you count what is really on the shelf and compare it with what the recipes say should be there. The gap tells the story: too much on the plate, food wasted, or food walking out of the door.
There are four steps: write the recipe with quantities, count every ingredient in the same units, allow for normal waste, then compare what stock should be with what you count. Growth Informer Business keeps recipes and their ingredients in its Manufacturing module, and recording a production run uses up the ingredients and adds the finished stock. It works beside a restaurant till and stock system, but you still have to count.
Write a recipe with quantities
A recipe here is not a story. It is a list: each ingredient, and how much of it goes into one portion. Without that list, nobody can say what a plate should cost or how much the store should lose when it sells.
How do I know how much of each ingredient goes into one plate?
Cook one plate the way you want every plate to be, on a kitchen scale, and write down what you used. Do it three times and take the usual figure. Use grams, millilitres or whole pieces. Do not write "a handful" or "one spoon from the big pot", because two cooks will fill that spoon differently.
- List every ingredient, even the small ones such as oil, onions and tomatoes.
- Write the quantity for one portion, not for the whole pot.
- Put the recipe where the cook can see it, and teach the serving spoon size.
How do I know my real cost per cake or plate?
Once the recipe exists, work out what each quantity costs you, then add them up. Take rice: you buy a 50 kg sack, so divide the sack price by 50 to get the price of one kilo. A plate that uses 150 g of rice uses 0.15 of a kilo, so multiply the kilo price by 0.15. Do the same for the chicken, the oil and the onions, and add the answers. For a cake, divide the price of a tray by 30 to get the price of one egg, then do the same for flour, sugar, butter and the cake box. Use what you really pay this month, because prices move.
That is ingredient cost only. Gas, charcoal, wages and rent are not in it, and deciding your menu price is a separate job, covered in our guide to restaurant food costing.
Count in the same units and allow for waste
How do I track stock in a restaurant kitchen?
Start with one rule: food leaves the store only through one door, and one person records it. Then follow the same routine every time.
- Opening count: weigh or count each ingredient at the start of the period.
- Add purchases: write down everything bought, with the date and supplier.
- Closing count: weigh or count again at the end.
- Used: opening plus purchases minus closing is what the kitchen actually used.
The units must match. You may buy rice in a 50 kg sack, oil in a jerrycan and eggs in a tray, but count and record in kilos, litres and single eggs, the same units your recipe uses. Things bought by the bunch or the basin, such as matoke and tomatoes, need a weighing too: weigh a few bunches or basins, take the usual weight, and use kilos from then on. If the recipe says grams and the store counts sacks, the comparison breaks before it starts.
Then allow for normal waste. Peeling, trimming, bones, spills and a little spoilage are real. Test it yourself: weigh a whole chicken, cook it, and weigh the meat that reaches plates. Do the same for fish, vegetables and anything you trim, and keep that figure as your waste allowance. It will be different for every ingredient, so measure rather than guess. Staff meals also use food, so write them in the book instead of leaving them to look like losses.
Read the gap between what should be and what you count
Now compare. Here is an example week for chicken, with made-up figures. The recipe uses 200 g per plate and you sold 50 plates, so the recipe says 10 kg should go. You allow 0.5 kg for trimming, so you expect about 10.5 kg used. The opening count plus purchases minus closing count says the kitchen used 12 kg. The unexplained gap is 1.5 kg, which is seven or eight plates of chicken that earned you nothing.
| What you want to know | Recipes plus a regular count | Memory or a count alone |
|---|---|---|
| What should each plate use? | Written down, the same for every cook | Whatever the cook remembers |
| Is there a gap? | Yes, expected stock against counted stock | Only when the store runs out |
| Giving too much on the plate | Shows as a repeating gap on one ingredient | Hidden, plates just look generous |
| Food taken home | A gap that normal waste does not explain | Looks like normal waste |
| Real cost per plate | Worked out from recipe and buying price | A guess |
| Work needed | Recipes once, then a regular count | Little effort, little knowledge |
Is my cook using more ingredients than the recipe?
A gap points to three causes, and you need to separate them:
- Over portioning (serving more than the recipe says): the gap repeats on the same ingredient, often by one cook or one shift. Weigh a few served plates before you blame anyone.
- Waste: spoiled, burnt, dropped or returned food. A simple waste book, filled in at the time, explains a lot.
- Taking food home or selling without recording: the gap stays after waste is counted, and it often grows on costly items such as meat, fish and cooking oil.
One bad week is not proof of anything. A gap that returns week after week on the same item is a signal. Our guide on stopping stock theft in a shop covers the follow-up steps, and the same thinking applies in a kitchen. A bar can use the method too: if your tot is 25 ml, a 750 ml bottle should give 30 tots, so count bottles and compare with the drinks sold.
How Growth Informer Business does this
Growth Informer Business is our own cloud till and business management system, used by more than 6,500 businesses, with Android and iOS apps. For kitchens, cafes and bakeries, the Manufacturing module holds recipes. A recipe lists its ingredients and the quantity of each, and the ingredients are products in your stock with their own units. When you record a production run, the system uses up the ingredients and adds the finished stock. You then see ingredient stock in your reports and per location, and you can compare it with your own count.
Around that, the system has restaurant features such as tables, kitchen order tickets, modifiers and bookings, plus users and roles so that only the right people can change stock. See our pages for the cafe and bar versions of this setup.
Can software take ingredients off stock when I sell?
Software takes the ingredients off stock when a production run is recorded against the recipe. That suits cakes, bread, sauces, batch cooking and a cafe that prepares items in batches, because the finished stock is then what you sell. For a plate cooked to order, we do not promise that every sale at the till takes its ingredients off by itself. The best way to set it up depends on how your kitchen works, so we confirm the exact steps with you in the demo, using your own menu.
One honest limit: the system shows what stock should be, but it cannot see inside your store. The weekly count is still your job, and it is what makes the numbers worth trusting.
What this is not, and when you do not need it
Recipe based stock control is not the same as costing a dish. Costing decides the price on the menu, while this page is about stock going down against recipes. It is also not the same as running bake batches, which is about planning and recording what a bakery makes each day. The three jobs support each other, but each needs its own habit.
You may not need software for this if:
- You cook and weigh everything yourself, and the menu is tiny.
- Your menu changes every day and no dish has a fixed recipe.
- You are not ready to count the store regularly. Software will not fix a count that never happens.
If you run several dishes, a few cooks, a bar or a bakery, and you suspect money is leaving through the kitchen, recipes and counts will show you where. Growth Informer Business is built for that, and a demo on WhatsApp will tell you quickly whether it fits your kitchen.
Frequently asked questions
What does recipe based stock control cost?
The price depends on your business: how many branches and users you have, and whether you need help setting up recipes. We do not quote a figure on this page. Message us on WhatsApp or use the form and we will show you a demo and give you a quote that fits.
Do I have to weigh every ingredient?
No. Weigh the costly and risky ones first, such as meat, fish, cooking oil, flour and spirits. Items that cost little, such as salt or a pinch of spice, can be guessed or averaged in the recipe.
How often should I count ingredients?
Count costly items daily or after each shift if you can, and the rest weekly. A short, regular count catches a problem early. A big count once a quarter only tells you the damage after it has happened.
How much waste is normal in a kitchen?
It depends on what you cook and how it is prepared, so there is no single number. Measure it yourself: weigh an ingredient before and after trimming or cooking, and use that figure as your allowance.
Does this work for a bar as well as a kitchen?
Yes, the thinking is the same. A bottle poured in fixed measures should give a known number of drinks. Count the bottles, compare with what sold, and look at the gap.