We were recently contacted by an attorney representing a client who used to own a frozen yogurt shop. The client’s business was being audited by the state. The government claimed that everything he purchased for the shop was sold.
The shop owner knew he did not sell all the frozen yogurt and toppings that he purchased. Some of it was lost due to machine cleaning, sampling, and the perishable nature of the product. Unfortunately, he was unable to provide an estimate of how much product was lost. Without any records, he could not substantiate his claims.
The attorney contacted other frozen yogurt shop owners in the area and discovered that they also did not keep track of amount of yogurt and toppings that were not sold.
The Extent of Food Waste Problem
It’s important to track food waste and to find ways to reduce it because doing so should increase your profit margins. According to the non-profit ReFed, 63 million tons of food is wasted annually in the US. The US restaurant industry generates 11.4 million tons of food waste annually at a cost of about $25 billion a year. For every dollar invested in food waste reduction, restaurants can realize $7-$8 in cost savings.
Reducing food waste is good for the bottom line, but also for the environment. When less food is wasted, less food is purchased, and less energy is used to produce food.
How to Track and Reduce Food Waste
Toast, Inc. provides restaurants with a detailed guide of how to measure, track, and reduce food waste. They recommend starting with a waste audit and a waste journal.
For frozen yogurt shops, one can weigh the amount of frozen yogurt that is drained out of the machine prior to preparing the soft serve machine for cleaning. To reduce waste, this leftover yogurt can be used to make other froyo products (e.g., pie, cakes, cookie sandwiches, froyo tacos, popsicles) and sold in pre-packed pints and quarts.
Tracking the amount of product given out as samples is more difficult, particularly if customers can help themselves to sample cups. To reduce the amount of product lost to sampling, have employees hand out sample cups or dispense samples. When employees dispense samples, they can track how many samples are given out per day for a week. That number is a rough estimate of how much product is given out as samples.
If any frozen yogurt store owner has tracked food waste and would be willing to share that information with the attorney we spoke with, send us an email at info@internationalfrozenyogurt.com.
