Running any business comes with its challenges, but those in the food space present a unique set of obstacles for business owners, with one of the most prevalent being food waste. According to the Green Restaurant Association, a single restaurant in the U.S. can produce approximately 50,000 pounds of food waste per year. By Tamara Rahoumi
Running any business comes with its challenges, but those in the food space present a unique set of obstacles for business owners, with one of the most prevalent being food waste. According to the Green Restaurant Association, a single restaurant in the U.S. can produce approximately 50,000 pounds of food waste per year. That data paired with rising consumer consciousness around waste – Unilever’s World Menu Report found that approximately 72% of U.S. diners care about how restaurants handle food waste – signal a strong need for food-based businesses to think critically about waste.
With that in mind, Taziki’s Mediterranean Cafe, a fast-casual restaurant franchise that combines traditional Mediterranean fare with American influences, has taken a tech-based approach to solve food waste woes through proprietary inventory management software.
“Our best owners and general managers are very diligent about keeping track of their inventory,” said Alex Garmezy, director of franchise development, noting that Taziki’s proprietary software requires regular upkeep to do what it’s meant to. “These tools are also designed to help you order appropriately by looking at a 14-day rolling sales trend as well as historical data for this date last year. It will then make an order suggestion to every GM so they spend less time doing that themselves and can instead go off of real projections.”
Garmezy notes that another important part of minimizing waste is that each store’s team is carefully trained to avoid operating on autopilot and instead taught to check what they need to prepare daily.
“If you know you sell twice as much hummus on a Saturday as you do on a Tuesday, when the staff arrives on Saturday morning, they look at their kitchen display screen, and it will say exactly how much hummus to make in the morning, and the recipes in the ingredients will adjust accordingly,” he said.
Overall, Taziki’s proprietary technology ecosystem empowers franchisees to keep tabs on raw materials and reduce waste through thoughtful ordering, which in turn allows them to build a more sustainable business – and a more cost-effective one, too.
Tamara Rahoumi