Why does cooking by guess waste so much food?
Most home kitchens cook for the full list of customers, every day. But on any given day some people are travelling, some ate out, and some forgot to tell you. The food for them is still cooked, still packed, and often thrown away.
The opposite also happens. You cook a little less to be safe, and then a customer you did not expect asks for their box. Now you are cooking a second time at noon, or someone goes without lunch.
Both problems have the same cause: you do not know the real number until it is too late. The fix is to find out the number before you buy vegetables and before you light the stove.
What cut-off time should you set?
A cut-off time is the last moment a customer can change tomorrow's box, or today's. After that, the count is fixed and you cook to it. Choose a time that leaves you room to shop and prepare.
- For lunch: changes by the evening before, for example 9 pm, so you can plan and soak or marinate overnight.
- For dinner: changes by late morning the same day works for many kitchens.
- For a new order from someone who is not a regular customer: ask for it the day before, so it is in your count.
Write the cut-off in your menu message every time. Customers forget rules they read once, but they see a line that repeats every day.
How do you get a confirmed count every day?
Ask a simple yes or no question, for one day at a time. Long messages get no reply; a short question gets one. Send tomorrow's menu in the evening with two choices: yes, I want my box, or skip tomorrow.
Reply YES for your box or SKIP if you don't need it.
Changes until 9 pm tonight. Thank you!
Then add up three groups before you shop:
- Everyone who said yes.
- Regular customers who did not reply. Decide one rule for them and keep it: most kitchens count no reply as yes for monthly customers.
- Minus everyone on leave or paused for that day.
That number, split into lunch and dinner, is what you cook. If you also take one-off orders, add the confirmed ones to the same count.
How many extra boxes should you cook?
Cook a small, fixed buffer on top of the count: one or two boxes is enough for most small kitchens. It covers a spilled box, a late message from a regular, or a driver who needs one more. Keep it fixed, so it does not slowly grow back into guessing.
Keep rice, roti dough and dal slightly flexible, because they are quick to make in a small extra batch. Fix the slow dishes, such as a curry that takes an hour, to the count.
What can you do with leftovers safely?
Some food will still be left. Use it with care, because a customer's health and trust matter more than one pot of food.
- Cool cooked food quickly and keep it covered in the fridge. Do not leave it out for hours.
- Use it for your own family's meal the same day or the next day, not for customers' boxes.
- Never mix yesterday's food into today's boxes. Customers pay for fresh food.
- Raw ingredients you bought for the count, such as cut vegetables, can go into the next day's cooking if stored well.
Food safety rules differ from place to place. Check the current rules for your area, and when in doubt, do not serve it.
How do you check that it is working?
For one week, write down three numbers every day: how many boxes you cooked, how many went out, and how many were left. It takes a minute and it tells you more than any advice.
| Day | Cooked | Sent out | Left over |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | 22 | 21 | 1 |
| Tuesday | 22 | 19 | 3 |
| Wednesday | 20 | 20 | 0 |
If one weekday always has more left over, people may be eating out that day. Ask them, or plan a smaller count for it. If you never have anything left and often run short, raise your buffer by one.
HomeTiffin does the counting for you: customers answer for today and tomorrow on one link, leaves and pauses come out by themselves, and you see one number to cook. See today and tomorrow orders, or read how to handle pauses and leaves.