How to Understand Waste to Improve Operations

Here’s how I utilized daily reporting to closely monitor waste across my restaurants to ensure every item was accounted for… First, I moved trash cans from the kitchen to an inconvenient place off the line. I replaced with a bucket or bus tub. Throughout each shift, any dropped, expired, or unusable items—like items that hit the floor, product past hold time, or broken sandwich buns were placed in the bucket instead of being thrown away. At the end of each shift, everything in the bucket was counted and entered into the system. This created two key opportunities: 🔍 Visibility and tracking: Every ounce of food that couldn’t be sold was accounted for. Nothing quietly “disappeared.” Root cause analysis: By tracking waste daily, I could pinpoint exactly where food costs were being impacted: 🍔 If food was missing but not reported, I knew it might signal theft, process gaps, or breakdowns in inventory. 🥗 If food was wasted, it often highlighted opportunities to adjust production, refine prep levels, or provide coaching for the team on timing and procedures. When waste is visible and tracked daily, it’s no longer unaccounted for—for above-store leaders it becomes data that drives better decisions and smarter coaching. Instead of scratching my head over why food costs were off, I could quickly determine whether it was an issue of waste, missing food, or something else entirely. If waste was high, I knew it was over-prepping, a training opportunity, or a workflow issue that needed adjusting. Seeing it daily with tools like Restaurant365 operational reporting helped me to narrow food costs down to specific managers, specific employees or specific days of the week to provide better coaching and support. 💡 Daily reporting doesn’t just tighten food costs; it builds awareness and accountability across the team. When employees see waste being tracked and counted, they naturally become more mindful of it. This process was part of running a tighter, more efficient operation. And over time, those small savings added up to hundreds of thousands of dollars back into the business. If you’re not utilizing daily reporting or tracking waste daily, you’re missing out on insights that could transform your food costs and coaching. Need ideas for your group? Shoot me a message. Happy to share what I’ve seen that’s successful. #RestaurantOwners #DailyReporting #RestaurantOperations #Waste #FoodCosts #Operations #Profits #Coaching #Accountability #COGS

I spent 2 days in a room with 40 heavy civil leaders last week. Here's the top principle I wanted them to leave with: "The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we do not recognize." — Shigeo Shingo If you can't SEE waste, then you can't recognize it. And the best way to see something... is to go observe it. So many leaders (in all sorts of industries) waste time, energy, and money by misunderstanding their business... BECAUSE They don't observe! So here's my challenge for you. Make a habit to GET OUT OF THE OFFICE and OBSERVE production, regularly. Schedule it on your calendar. Understand what waste is present on the jobsite. And understand when value is actually being produced for the PAYING customer. "It's only the last turn of a bolt that tightens it—the rest is just movement." There's so much movement (waste) going on in a business that feels productive, when really it's just pure cost. And if you don't see it, you won't do anything about it. But you need to practice seeing waste. You need to develop the skill of RECOGNIZING waste inside of your business. So the most important process I left the leaders with? 1. Observe 2. Interpret 3. Apply Stop making changes from the boardroom. Start making improvements based on observations in the field.