Inventory & stock
Restaurant Food Waste Tracking and Reduction
How to log waste in Wox as it happens, see what it costs by item and by reason, and turn a short weekly review into smaller orders and tighter prep.
Every kitchen throws food away. Tomatoes go soft at the back of the walk-in, a tray of lobiani is baked for a lunch rush that never comes, a plate of mtsvadi ends up on the floor between the pass and table six. None of that is unusual. What is unusual is a restaurant that knows how much it threw away last week, what that was worth in lari, and why.
Waste tracking in Wox exists to make that loss visible. Each entry records an item, a quantity, the storage it came from and a reason. It comes off stock through the same ledger as sales, deliveries and counts, and it is valued at the item's cost. Within a few weeks the entries add up to a picture you can act on.
Waste is not the same as a shortage
Before you start, be clear about what counts as waste. Waste is loss you know about and record on purpose: spoilage, breakage, prep trim, a dish sent back. A shortage is something else. It is what a stock count finds missing that nobody can explain.
Wox keeps the two apart. Count shortages appear in the count variance report and are never written into the waste log. If a shortage is logged as waste to make the numbers agree, the signal that something is being over-portioned, mis-received or taken disappears. The inventory management guide explains how counts and their review work.
Waste is the loss you know about. A shortage is the loss you do not.
Agree the reasons and the checkpoints
When you log waste, Wox offers a short set of reasons: spoiled, expired, damaged, prep loss, spillage, over-production, returned by guest and other. Each entry can also carry a note. Using the same reasons every time is what makes the report readable a month later.
The bigger decision is when people log. Waste recorded from memory at closing time is waste half-forgotten, and the amounts drift towards round numbers. Pick fixed points in the day where the team already pauses.
- 1Agree with the kitchen manager which of the preset reasons your team will use and what each one means in your kitchen.
- 2Choose two or three logging checkpoints, for example after morning prep, after lunch service and at close.
- 3Name the person who logs at each checkpoint, usually the shift lead or the cook running that section.
- 4Walk the team through one real entry before service so everyone has done it once.
Log waste as it happens
- 1Open Inventory in the Wox web app and choose Log waste, or start from the item itself.
- 2Pick the item and the storage it came from.
- 3Enter the quantity in the item's unit.
- 4Choose the reason and add a short note if it helps, for example walk-in door left open overnight.
- 5Save. The quantity comes off stock and the entry appears in the waste report with its value.
On the POS, staff can also ask Wox Analyst to record waste in plain Georgian or English, such as two portions of khinkali dropped at the pass. The assistant prepares the entry and it is written only after someone taps confirm. AI is not included on the Free plan.
Review waste every week
The waste report shows total waste value for the period, the number of entries and two breakdowns: by item and by reason, each with its value and its share of the total. Both breakdowns can be downloaded as CSV. The waste report is available on every plan; on Free it covers the current week or month.
WoxInventory Count
Walk-In Cooler · Downtown
- 1Once a week, open the waste report for the last seven days at the location you manage.
- 2Sort items by value and look at the top five rather than the whole list.
- 3Check the reason breakdown. A week dominated by over-production is a prep problem; one dominated by spoilage usually points to ordering or storage.
- 4For each of the top items, agree one change and one person responsible, for example halve the Monday lobiani batch.
- 5The following week, open the same report and check whether those items came down.
Keep the review short and specific. Fifteen items discussed once are worth less than three items followed up every week until they stop appearing.
Feed what you learn into ordering and prep
Waste data earns its keep when it changes what you buy and what you make. If the same greens spoil every Thursday, the delivery is too large or arrives too early in the week. If over-production clusters on quiet days, prep quantities should follow the sales pattern rather than a fixed number.
- 1Compare each top waste item with how much of it was bought in the same period.
- 2Where spoilage is high, lower the par level or split the delivery into smaller, more frequent drops.
- 3Where over-production is high, cut batch sizes on the days that over-produce.
- 4Where prep loss is high, check the waste percentage on the recipe so dish costs reflect what is really lost.
Par levels and recipe costing both have their own guides. Over months, the food cost variance report, available from the Growth plan, shows whether the gap between what recipes say you should have spent and what you actually spent is narrowing. Logged waste explains part of that gap; whatever remains points to portioning or loss nobody recorded. Our article on reducing restaurant food waste has more ideas for the kitchen side.
Common mistakes
- Logging only at the end of the day. Record waste at each checkpoint, while the amount is still in front of you.
- Logging items that have no price. The quantity comes off stock but the report cannot value it, so make sure frequently wasted items have a current price.
- Collecting data without follow-up. Every weekly review should end with named actions and a person for each.
- Posting count shortages as waste. It flatters the count and hides the problem the shortage was pointing at.
Questions people ask
What is the difference between waste and a stock shortage in Wox?
Waste is loss you saw and recorded, with a reason such as spoiled or prep loss. A shortage is stock a count expected but could not find. Wox keeps shortages in the count variance report and never writes them into the waste log.
Where can staff log waste?
In the Wox web app from Inventory, either with Log waste or from the item itself. On the POS, staff can ask Wox Analyst to record waste, and the entry is written only after they confirm. Wox Analyst is not included on the Free plan.
How is waste valued in the report?
Each entry is valued using the item's cost in Wox, and the report totals the value by item and by reason. Items with no purchase price cannot be valued, so keep prices current on the items you waste most often.
Can I export waste data?
Yes. The waste-by-item and waste-by-reason tables can each be downloaded as a CSV file that opens in Excel or Google Sheets, with Georgian item names intact.
Does Wox record expired stock automatically?
Yes, for stock with an expiry date. Wox warns before the date, seven days ahead by default, and writes expired quantity off as waste when the date passes, notifying owners, admins and the location's managers.
Related guides
Restaurant Inventory Counting and Stock Management
Best practices for restaurant inventory management — storages, counts, low-stock control, and replenishment planning to reduce food cost.
Recipe Costing and Food Cost Percentage Tracking
How to link recipe costs to live invoice data so your food cost percentage stays accurate as ingredient prices change.
Food Cost Reporting and Restaurant Analytics
How restaurant operators can calculate food cost percentage, track COGS, run actual vs theoretical reports, and use analytics to control food cost.
Background reading
How to Calculate and Control Restaurant Food Cost Percentage
Food cost percentage is the single most important financial metric for restaurant profitability. It measures how much of every revenue dollar goes toward the ingredients on each plate. For an industry where average net profit margins hover between 3% and 5%, even a one-point shift in food cost can mean the difference between a profitable quarter and a losing one. This guide explains exactly how to calculate food cost percentage, what the benchmarks are by restaurant type, and which operational strategies bring that number under control.
Actual vs. Theoretical Food Cost: How to Calculate and Track Variance
Most restaurant operators know their food cost percentage. Fewer understand why that number is what it is. Actual food cost tells you where you ended up. Theoretical food cost tells you where you should have been. The difference between the two—variance—tells you why. This guide explains how to calculate both, how to interpret the gap, and what to do when variance exceeds acceptable thresholds.
Food Cost Variance: A Worked Example and How to Find the Cause
A worked food cost variance example, the six causes behind most gaps between actual and theoretical food cost, and the week-long tests that tell you which one is costing you money.
The feature behind this guide
Restaurant inventory management, simplified
How Wox helps you track food cost and reduce wastage in your restaurant