Why Only Tracking Food Waste Leaves Savings on the Table

Greater efficiency comes from better production data

Foodservice leaders are well aware of how food waste is cutting into dining budgets – ReFed estimates that $9.9 billion worth of food went unused or unsold in 2023 across U.S. enterprise foodservice. But solving this costly problem requires moving beyond end-of-day waste tracking: teams need tools that capture the full production picture to match each day’s plan to diner demand.

When culinary teams make decisions based on guesswork and incomplete information, waste is inevitable. Chefs need to lead their team more than just legacy spreadsheets offering basic, traffic-based projections. They need greater clarity, like being able to place orders and build menus based on what their team actually prepared, carried over, and wasted. And cooks deserve better days than scrambling to fire more tilapia for unexpectedly popular fish tacos, or prepping trays of scrambled eggs that go untouched and straight to the trash.

Topanga is building the technology to transform kitchens into cutting-edge operations by optimizing every stage of production.

The foodservice incentive for smarter production planning

From ReFed; using 2023 data to show surplus food sources, the reasons for waste, and types of wasted food.

Overproduction (excess) is the second-largest cause of food waste across all sectors – and overproduction is the most expensive form of waste, when accounting for both invested time and opportunity cost. Overproduced food is much more difficult to repurpose given recipe complexity (raw carrots versus a farro, feta, and carrot salad), and as soon as a dish is fired, its shelf life is limited.

Persistent inflation and high ingredient costs have led the value of food waste to outpace the increase in volume over the last few years, and price outlooks are not promising. New immigration policies could lead to labor shortages and tariff uncertainties to continued increases in food prices. With the right technology, dining directors can protect their budgets from this economic uncertainty by identifying how their team can make better use of existing resources – which hinges on greater visibility.

Do you know how much food is wasted in your kitchen? Let's discuss how we can build your path to better production together.

Book Time with Topanga

Limited food waste tracking misses crucial production nuances

There’s widespread distrust in the data currently available to teams, leading to guaranteed waste: many hospitality organizations can’t depend on the accuracy of their forecasts, so prepare 10% more food than is projected to avoid running out. This is not unique to hospitality – we’ve heard from many colleges & universities that also feel they must over-order and over-produce to guarantee that promised menu items are always available in ‘all you can eat’ environments.

Better forecasting can only occur with data that reflects what actually happened on the line; limiting analysis to only waste data ignores key changes between planned, prepared, and carryover.

To illustrate: on Monday, a sous chef prepares two fewer pounds of pork shoulder than he was supposed to, but that was actually for the best – there’s very little left at the end of the meal. Or, let’s say a cook was able to save and chill three pounds of grilled chicken breasts from lunch service to use in dinner’s salad bar, so now the dinner team needs to prepare less chicken. If a chef were to take that Monday’s planned quantities as truth, they’re basing next Monday’s plan off inaccurate information – resulting in waste.

When teams have the right tools to quickly record what they actually prepared, what was carried over, and what is waste (overproduction, trimmings, or spoilage), then chefs can immediately act on that day’s reality – and build better plans for the future.

How Topanga’s StreamLine enables cost-saving clarity

Topanga’s StreamLine enables culinary teams to record information across every stage of production in seconds.

The StreamLine smart scale with an easy-to-navigate interface.

Instead of only documenting waste, cooks can also place trays of prepared or leftover food on the countertop smart scale. In one tap, StreamLine captures the observation’s weight and takes a photo. All production data is automatically matched to menu items and sent to your menu management system, replacing hours of manual data entry with accurate, real-time results.

Armed with actionable insights, chefs are empowered to: adjust order volumes to increase ingredient utilization, grow team trust with accurate production plans, meet (and exceed) cost reduction goals, and make more popular meals. By using StreamLine, foodservice teams have made proactive production decisions that resulted in 50% less waste for key items like tilapia and oatmeal.

Cutting-edge kitchens operate on clarity, not chaos. We’re building technology to help culinary teams preserve precious resources – which starts with a foundation of accurate data.

---

Ready to start addressing the root cause of waste in your kitchen? Book time with our team here.