Inventory, portion control, theft prevention, supplier optimization — practical steps to lower food cost in your restaurant.
What food cost is and where it should be
Food cost = cost of ingredients / revenue × 100%. A healthy range for F&B in Uzbekistan is 28–35%. Above 35%, you’re losing margin. Above 40%, you’re losing money.
Cutting food cost by 5 points on 200 million UZS/month in revenue = +10 million in net profit. That’s a real lever.
Where the leaks usually are
- Staff theft — 2–5% of revenue on average in Uzbekistan.
- Wrong portions (the cook “piles it on”) — 3–8%.
- Write-offs and spoilage from poor purchase planning — 2–4%.
- Overpriced suppliers (nobody has renegotiated the contract in 2 years) — 3–6%.
- Menu items with expensive ingredients and no upsell — 1–3% of lost margin.
What to do
- Weekly inventory counts (not monthly!) — catch losses before they become critical.
- Recipe cards for every dish: 200 g of noodles, 80 g of meat. Spot-check on the scale regularly.
- Portion control through the POS: a dish on the receipt = ingredients deducted from inventory automatically.
- Cameras in the kitchen — cut theft by 60–80%.
- Supplier tenders twice a year — save 5–10% on purchasing.
- Top 10 most-written-off items — rethink the menu or the supplier.
→ Keep inventory and recipe-based deductions in iiko: Zoomda integrates with iiko and automatically passes every online order to it — so stock levels and food cost are always calculated on complete data, delivery included.
Need help with implementation or a custom estimate for your restaurant? Book a free demo — our expert will reach out within 15 minutes and walk through your case step by step.