McDonald's Launches New Era of Growth
McDonald’s welcomes Bryan Brown as chief development officer, leveraging his experience to drive store modernization and support the “NEXT” strategy for franchisees and teams.
Jul 2, 2026
McDonald’s welcomes Bryan Brown as chief development officer, leveraging his experience to drive store modernization and support the “NEXT” strategy for franchisees and teams.
Jul 2, 2026
QR code menu helps restaurants update items faster, improve mobile ordering, reduce printing costs, and track customer behavior over time.
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Jersey Mike’s plans an IPO, showcasing sharp growth and franchise strength - a move with ripple effects for restaurant owners watching industry trends.
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Learn how to build a restaurant catering system that attracts clients, improves margins, simplifies operations, and creates repeat revenue.
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White Castle and Garage Beer, two Ohio-based favorites, announce a summer collaboration with new promotions and products. Learn how restaurant owners can ride the LTO wave.
Jul 2, 2026
Papa John’s announces the departure of CFO Ravi Thanawala and the appointment of Chris Collins as interim CFO, signaling strategic leadership changes in the company’s finance team.
Jul 1, 2026
Buffalo Wild Wings has named Scott Nelson as Chief Marketing Officer, signaling a strategic evolution ahead of Inspire Brands' anticipated IPO. Learn how his diverse background may impact your restaurant's marketing playbook.
Jul 1, 2026
Compare the top 10 restaurant POS systems in the USA for 2026. Explore features, pricing, pros, cons, and the best POS options for every restaurant type.
Jul 1, 2026
Explore the latest restaurant industry performance report for Q2 2026, including key restaurant industry trends, segment performance, and labor challenges.
Jul 1, 2026
Dog Haus has signed an exclusive beverage partnership with Keurig Dr Pepper, bringing flexible and innovative drink options to the chain and setting a new standard for franchise beverage programs.
Jun 30, 2026
Untracked food waste is one of the biggest hidden costs in restaurants. Learn how to build a waste tracking system that reduces food cost and improves kitchen profitability.
Ask almost any restaurant operator how much food their kitchen wastes in a week, and most will not be able to give you a precise answer. They might say it is not much. They might say the team is pretty careful. They might point to the fact that they have not noticed anything alarming. But the truth is, if you are not tracking waste, you do not actually know. And what you do not know, you cannot fix. Restaurant food waste is one of the most consistent and underestimated sources of cost in the food service industry. It happens every day, in almost every kitchen, and in many operations it happens invisibly because no one has built the discipline of recording it.
Most people think of waste as spoilage - food that goes bad before it gets used. And spoilage is part of the picture. But restaurant food waste comes from several directions at once, and spoilage is often not even the largest contributor. The main sources of waste in a restaurant kitchen include -

The reason waste tracking falls apart in most restaurants is both cultural and structural. When service is busy and the pace is relentless, stopping to record that a portion was dropped or that a prep batch went wrong feels like an unnecessary interruption. It is easier to just move on. There is also a psychological component. No one wants to document their own mistakes. If logging waste is perceived as a blame exercise rather than a data collection tool, team members will avoid it. Common barriers to consistent restaurant waste tracking include -
When you build a consistent restaurant food waste tracking habit, patterns emerge quickly. You might find that a specific ingredient gets wasted on the same days every week, pointing to a mismatch between ordering, prep scheduling, and actual demand. You might find that one station generates a disproportionate amount of prep waste, pointing to a training gap. You might find that certain menu items consistently generate plate waste, suggesting a portion size or recipe issue. None of this information is visible without a record. With a record, it becomes actionable -
Waste tracking does not need to be complicated to generate useful data. A simple log that captures what was wasted, how much, and why is enough to start identifying patterns. The critical element is consistency, not complexity. Practical steps for building a restaurant waste log system include -

Waste is not random. It is a pattern shaped by ordering decisions, prep habits, portioning standards, storage practices, and menu design. Every item that goes in the trash has a dollar value attached to it, and those dollars add up fast across hundreds of covers and hundreds of service days. The restaurants that consistently run lower food cost percentages are not necessarily the ones with the best ingredients or the most efficient kitchens. They are the ones that see their waste clearly, take it seriously, and treat it as something that can be reduced through smarter systems and better habits.