How does a restaurant know how much food to make each day?

Question

I watch random food shows like “Food Paradise” on Travel channel, and “Triple D” by the Mayor of FlavorTown himself. When they speak to the owner/cook, they say things like “oh we cook 400 lbs of BBQ a day” or “about 3000 pancakes each day” or whatever. How do they know that’s what they will use? Seems like a guessing game.

In: Other

Answer 1

Basically how much food you made exactly a year ago. If the food output has grown ten percent, then you scale ten percent.

American restaurants used to have huge volumes of waste. Still do. Employees take it home. Some get donated to homeless shelters.