Top 14 Cost Control Measures in Restaurants & Foodservice

As in other areas of the economy, many restaurants are looking for ways to cut costs without sacrificing product quality, customer service or employee morale. If you’re looking for strategies to streamline your budget during this period of high inflation, our guide to the top 12 cost control measures in restaurants and foodservice will help you tighten your belt easily and efficiently while still giving your guests and staff a great experience.

Track Food Costs

Since the cost of food ranges from 28% to 35% of total revenue for most restaurants, tracking these costs closely during periods of high inflation is essential. If you notice that prices are creeping up, check with suppliers to see if there’s anything they can do to give you a better deal: this will help you avoid unexpected budget shortfalls that’ll force you to raise prices drastically. 

Consolidate Food Suppliers

A GoTenzo.com article explains the importance of supplier consolidation, reducing the number of suppliers your restaurant uses, in order to control costs. By working with fewer vendors, you can buy in bulk and combine deliveries, as well as have more power when negotiating prices: just be sure you don’t end up depending on a vendor with unreliable quality and volatile prices.

Maintain Inventory Effectively

Carefully managing inventory is one of the best cost-control measures in foodservice. Make sure you’re organizing your restaurant kitchen with the FIFO (first-in, first-out) method so you can keep food costs low by reducing loss due to spoilage. Also, only reorder supplies when your current stock is low so you don’t have excess food sitting around that goes to waste. 

Invest in AI-Driven Forecasting Tools

Using AI-powered tools provides an excellent way to control excessive costs for your restaurant. Not only do they streamline the process, but they can also efficiently monitor profits, increased expenses, COGS and more. 

Some useful AI-driven money management tools include:

• MarketMan—Inventory management software that can automate inventory tracking, invoicing and track profits and various costs.


• xtraCHEF—An accounts payable application which includes features like inventory management, recipe and plate costing and spending analysis.


• SimpleOrder—Offers inventory and order management tools, along with a supplier/vendor price comparison, so you can find the best price.


• Apicbase—Provides inventory management tools and cost analysis, while it also flags any variations and potential food waste forecasting. 

Minimize Food Waste

From optimizing inventory to repurposing leftovers, there are many ways to minimize food waste. Making sure your refrigerators are working properly and your ovens are at the right temperature can help prevent loss due to spoilage or overcooking, too. If your staff remakes dishes frequently due to error, additional food preparation training to reduce ingredient costs may be helpful as well.

Measure Food Consistently 

Similarly, measuring food portions precisely is one of the most effective cost control measures in restaurants. Whether you’re measuring ingredients to make a dish or serving items to customers, portioning food consistently makes it easier to track costs correctly. If this is an area in which your staff struggles, try holding refresher training sessions on occasion.

Adjust Portion Sizes

If you notice that a lot of your guests aren’t finishing their meals, you might want to consider modifying portion sizes. While reducing portions significantly may make customers feel like they’re getting less value, slightly smaller servings can improve your profit margin considerably: just make sure that if your menu items become noticeably smaller, you adjust prices accordingly.

Reduce Employee Turnover

Minimizing restaurant employee turnover is critical if you want to control costs. Even if higher wages and bonuses increase expenses in the short term, better staff retention means that you won’t have to constantly recruit and train new team members, leading to lower labor costs and increased efficiency over the long term.

Partner with Ghost Kitchens to Lower Overhead Costs

Ghost kitchens allow restaurants to expand delivery and takeout offerings without the expense of a full dine-in location. By partnering with existing kitchen spaces or delivery-focused operations, you can drastically cut rent, utilities, and staffing costs while increasing your online presence.

Automate Simple Tasks

If you notice that rather mundane tasks are taking up a lot of time, consider automating them. For example, encouraging customers to order through your website rather than over the phone, or scheduling social media posts instead of uploading them manually, can help your staff focus on other tasks, making your operations more efficient and, indirectly, lowering operating costs.

Invest in Smart Kitchen Equipment

Investing in smart commercial kitchen equipment can offer many benefits, including reduced food waste and energy savings. Many commercial units nowadays have built-in sensors that can monitor energy usage, cook times and provide maintenance reminders. These features not only streamline the cooking process, but they can also reduce energy costs, food waste costs and maintenance costs.

Control Internal Theft

Considering that restaurant worker theft accounts for 75% of inventory shortages, reducing employee pilferage is one of the best ways to control costs. Although you don’t want to be controlling, it’s a good idea to watch for missing inventory, unauthorized meals, excessive breaks and time theft if you want to make sure your staff’s behavior doesn’t cost you money.

Be Environmentally-Friendly

While going green is good for altruistic reasons, it’s also a great strategy for reducing expenses. Even though energy-efficient light bulbs or water-saving dishwashers may have higher upfront costs, the long-term savings on utility bills will be very noticeable. If you want to be even more sustainable, consider swapping out single-use items like paper napkins for reusable cloth ones.

Eliminate Unprofitable Items

Although some dishes are bound to be better money-makers than others, taking unprofitable items off your menu is one of the best cost control measures in restaurants. So, be sure to do some number crunching to see which have the best margins, then promote your most profitable food items by placing those dishes at the top of the menu so customers will be more likely to order them.