Spot checks: twenty lines, ten minutes, every week

A full stock count tells you, once a month, how much stock the kitchen used. It cannot tell you when a problem started, which shift it happened on, or whether it is still going on. By the time the monthly figure shows that something is wrong, the trail is four weeks cold, and the explanations have faded with it.

Spot checks fill the gap. Each week, someone counts a short list of carefully chosen lines, sets the result against what should be there, and notes the difference. Twenty lines and ten minutes, as an example, are enough for most single venues. The check is quick because the list is short, and it is useful because it is close to the event: a gap found this week can still be explained by the people who were working.

This guide explains how to choose the twenty lines, how to run the check in ten minutes, how to calculate the expected figure, and what a gap means, especially when the same line shows a gap week after week. Every figure in it is an example.

Spot checks do three jobs that a monthly count cannot.

They show problems early. A weekly check on the lines that matter most shows a change in usage within days, rather than at the month end.

They test the full count. If the spot checks agree with each other week after week and the monthly count suddenly does not, the count is the first suspect. Our guide to stock count accuracy lists the ways a full count goes wrong.

They change behaviour. A team that knows high-value lines are checked every week handles them more carefully, without anybody needing to say so.

Most kitchens settle on a pattern of three frequencies. A full count monthly, for the accounts. A weekly count of the main lines, for managing food cost. And spot checks in between, on a short and rotating list, for catching specific problems. Our guide to what a stocktake is and how often to do one covers the full count and the weekly count.

Spot checks are the lightest of the three, and the most flexible. They can be done at any point in the week, on any shift, and the list can change from week to week. That flexibility is part of their value: unlike the monthly count, nobody can predict exactly which lines will be checked, or when.

Choose by money and by movement. A line is worth checking if a gap on it would cost real money, or if it moves fast enough that a gap could grow quickly.

Start with your stock by value. In most kitchens a small number of lines carries most of the value: proteins, dairy, oils, spirits and wine, a few expensive dry goods. Rank your lines by the value you use each week, and take the top ten or twelve. These are your fixed lines, checked every week.

Then add the movers: items that are easy to take, easy to waste or easy to over-use. Premium spirits, butter, cheese, prawns, steak, chocolate and anything that disappears into staff meals often belong here, even if they are not at the very top by value. Rotate eight or so of these lines from week to week, so the list is never entirely predictable.

The split between fixed and rotating lines matters. Fixed lines give you a trend: the same twelve lines checked every week show how usage is moving over time. Rotating lines give you coverage: over a couple of months, every line worth worrying about has been checked at least once.

Keep a simple record of which rotating lines were checked each week, so that nothing important goes unchecked for months, and so that a line with a gap can be brought onto the fixed list until the gap is explained.

The check itself is short and should be done the same way every time.

Twenty lines, counted carefully, take about ten minutes for one person who knows where everything is. Choose a time when stock is not moving: before prep starts, or after service ends, and before deliveries arrive.

To know whether there is a gap, you need to know what should be there. The expected figure for each line is:

Expected usage comes from sales. For a line used in a few dishes, multiply the units sold of each dish since the last check by the quantity of the line in each dish's recipe. For a spirit, multiply the drinks sold by the measure in each.

An example. On the last check, the kitchen had 14.0 kilograms of beef fillet. Since then, 10.0 kilograms were delivered. The menu report shows 92 fillet steaks sold, each using 220 grams of trimmed fillet, which is about 20.2 kilograms, plus an allowance for trim on the whole fillets bought: in this kitchen's costing, about 10 per cent, so about 22.2 kilograms of fillet as bought. Expected stock is 14.0 plus 10.0 minus 22.2, which is 1.8 kilograms. The count finds 0.9 kilograms. The gap is 0.9 kilograms of fillet, worth, at an example 40 a kilogram, about 36.

Not every line maps neatly to dish sales. Butter, oil, cream and herbs are used across many dishes and in prep, and calculating their expected usage precisely is more work than a spot check deserves.

For these, use a simpler measure: usage per hundred covers. Divide the week's usage by the number of covers, and track it from week to week. If butter usage per hundred covers jumps from 1.2 kilograms to 1.8 kilograms with no change in the menu, something has changed. It may be a new dish, a new cook, a change in how a sauce is made, or stock leaving the kitchen.

A gap between expected and actual stock is inventory variance on a single line. It has a limited number of explanations, and the order in which you look at them matters.

Most single-week gaps resolve at the first three steps. The ones that do not are the ones worth watching.

A gap that appears once is usually a counting or timing error. A gap that appears on the same line week after week is a pattern, and patterns have causes.

Common causes of a repeated gap on one line:

The weekly check narrows the possibilities in a way a monthly count never can. If the gap appears only in weeks when a particular team is on, or only after deliveries from a particular supplier, the cause is usually found quickly.

Shrinkage is the general term for stock that leaves without being sold: waste, spoilage, over-portioning, theft, errors. In retail accounting it is a recognised category of loss, and Wikipedia's article on shrinkage describes it in that setting. In a kitchen, shrinkage is a useful word for the total, but a poor guide to action, because it lumps together causes that need very different responses.

Spot checks break shrinkage into specific lines and specific weeks. Instead of "food cost is two points high", you can say "beef fillet has been 0.8 to 1 kilogram short for three weeks running", which is a problem someone can investigate.

Spirits are among the best candidates for spot checks: high value, easy to over-pour, easy to give away and easy to take. Choose the house spirits that pour all night, a few premium bottles and anything with a history of gaps.

Weighing open bottles makes bar spot checks quick and accurate. Our guide to liquor inventory explains how to weigh a bottle against its full and empty weights, and our guide to a bar stock checklist for the end of the night covers a short nightly version of the same idea.

An invented kitchen runs spot checks every week for a month on twelve fixed lines and eight rotating ones. In the first week, three lines show gaps: beef fillet, butter and a premium gin. Recounts explain the butter, which was in the pastry section's fridge and missed. The gin turns out to be a bottle moved to the function bar for an event and not recorded. The fillet gap, 0.9 kilograms, stays.

In the second week, the fillet is short again, by 0.8 kilograms. Nothing else on the list shows a gap. The head chef weighs steak portions during two services and finds them averaging 240 grams against a specification of 220, mostly on the nights a newer cook runs the grill.

In the third week, after a short retraining session and a scale at the grill, the fillet gap falls to 0.2 kilograms, inside the kitchen's normal range. In the fourth week it is 0.1. Meanwhile the rotating lines have covered cheese, prawns, cream, chocolate and four spirits without finding anything that did not resolve on a recount.

The month's food cost comes in close to the theoretical figure, and the one real problem was found in week two rather than at the month end. That is the whole point of the exercise.

The time of the check matters for accuracy. Stock should be still: before prep starts in the morning, or after the last orders at night, and not while a delivery is being put away. A check during prep or service will find stock in pans, on boards and in the pass, and the count will be meaningless.

Vary the day within the week, but keep the time of day sensible. A check on a different weekday each week, always before morning prep, is unpredictable enough to be honest and consistent enough to compare.

A group can run the same spot checks in every venue, on the same lines, and compare the results. A line that is consistently short in one venue and fine in the others points at something local: a cook, a supplier's delivery to that venue, a storage problem. Keep the expected figures consistent across venues by using the same recipes and the same way of calculating usage, or the comparison means nothing.

Spot checks work best when done by someone who is not responsible for the stock being checked, or at least not alone. A head chef checking the kitchen's lines can do it, but a manager or sous chef checking alongside is better, both for accuracy and for fairness.

Rotate who does the check, and vary the day and time within reason. A check that always happens at the same moment can be anticipated; one that varies is a more honest picture.

Keep one sheet, or one spreadsheet tab, with a row per line per week: the line, the date, the expected figure, the count, the gap and a note. After a few weeks, the sheet shows patterns at a glance: which lines are consistently fine, which wobble and which are consistently short.

Look at the sheet every month alongside the full count. Our guide to reading food cost variance explains how the monthly figure and the line-by-line view fit together.

A confirmed, repeated gap deserves a specific response, matched to its cause.

Whatever the cause, keep the line on the fixed list until the gap has been gone for several weeks.

Spot checks are most effective when the team knows they happen and understands why. Present them as a way of catching problems early and protecting everyone, not as surveillance. Share the good weeks as well as the bad ones, and explain what a gap was when it turns out to be a counting or recipe error. A team that sees gaps explained fairly trusts the checks, and a team that trusts the checks tends to make them unnecessary.

Spot checks need counts, deliveries and expected usage. The counts and deliveries stay on your own sheet today: servearound does not track stock. Inventory tracking, for the stock behind the menu, is coming.

servearound supplies the sales side of the expected figure. The menu report in Analytics shows units sold for every dish and drink over any range of dates, so the sales since your last check are a few seconds away. The payments report shows voids, comps and discounts by member of staff, which is often where an unexplained gap on a line starts to make sense. If you would like to see it, get in touch.

Short, frequent counts of a small number of chosen lines, compared with what should be there from the last count, deliveries and sales. They catch problems early and test the accuracy of the full count.

About twenty for a single venue: ten or twelve fixed lines with the highest value, and eight or so rotating lines chosen for risk.

About ten minutes for twenty lines, counted by someone who knows where everything is, at a time when stock is not moving.

Last counted quantity, plus deliveries since, minus expected usage from sales and recipes. For lines used across many dishes, track usage per hundred covers instead.

Usually a cause that repeats: over-portioning, an outdated recipe, unrecorded waste or staff use, or a supplier's short deliveries. Theft is possible, but it is the last explanation to consider, not the first.

Weekly is a good rhythm for most venues, with the day and time varied within reason.

Someone other than the person responsible for the stock, or that person together with a manager, rotating who does it.

No. They sit between full counts. Keep a full count monthly for the accounts and use spot checks to catch problems in between.

Yes. A list in a spreadsheet or a notes app works as well as paper, as long as the expected figures are on it and the results are kept somewhere they can be compared week by week.

The routine should be known; the exact lines and timing need not be. A team that knows checks happen every week handles stock more carefully, and rotating lines keep the picture honest.

Stock that leaves without being sold, through waste, spoilage, over-portioning, errors or theft. Spot checks break it down into specific lines and weeks, so it can be acted on.

Spot checks are short weekly counts of about twenty lines: a fixed list of the highest-value lines and a rotating list of the ones most at risk. Count them in about ten minutes at a quiet time, compare each with the expected figure from the last count, deliveries and sales, and recount anything that looks wrong straight away.

Read a single gap with caution, and a repeated gap with interest: it usually points to over-portioning, an outdated recipe, unrecorded waste or use, or a supplier problem, and only rarely to theft. Keep a simple record, look at it alongside the monthly count, and keep a line on the fixed list until its gap has gone. A problem found this week can still be explained; one found next month rarely can.