Inventory variance is the gap between the product a restaurant should have used based on what it sold (theoretical usage) and what it actually used — the measure that surfaces waste, over-portioning, and shrink. Waste alone runs an estimated 10–15% of a typical ~32% food-cost base, and the recoverable slice of variance is real money every month. It’s the food-cost half of profit leak, and it becomes far more powerful when correlated with the labor and void signals from the same shifts.

Related: profit leak · prime cost

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