Operating question · Waste tracking
Waste was visible only after the money was gone.
Before Service turns waste logs into pattern detection — by station, by shift, by SKU — so tomorrow's prep plan shrinks before the same pan gets dumped again.
Focused output
IN REVIEWWaste watch
System generated — operator review required.
What it answers
Dumped mise looks like one bad night. It's actually a pattern.
Without pattern detection, the same waste repeats every week. Sunday hummus, Monday pickled onion, Wednesday sourdough — quietly accumulating into the largest controllable cost on the P&L.
Same SKU, same shift, dumped every week.
Waste log entries no one reads after the shift.
Prep pars never adjusted to reflect the pattern.
Hard to attribute waste to forecast vs portion vs spoilage.
Inputs
Signals used to prepare the brief
- Waste pattern detection by SKU, station and shift
- Recommended par adjustments with cost impact
- Distinguishes forecast error, over-portioning and spoilage
- One-tap waste logging on mobile for the line
Output artifact
Pattern detection that shrinks pars automatically.
- Waste pattern detection by SKU, station and shift
- Recommended par adjustments with cost impact
- Distinguishes forecast error, over-portioning and spoilage
Confidence + rationale
Readable evidence, not a black box
- Invoices, recipes, on-hand counts, sales mix, and recorded waste
- Confidence shown beside the recommendation
- Source signals stay available for review
Operator boundary
The system prepares the call. Your team confirms it.
Realistic pre-service scenario
A supplier increase puts pressure on one menu item. The brief shows the source and leaves the pricing call to the operator.
No automatic action. A human operator reviews every decision.
Service sequence
How a kitchen manager closes a waste loop.
- Each shift
Line logs waste with reason in 5 seconds on mobile.
- Sunday 22:00
Pattern detector flags a recurring Sunday mise dump on hummus.
- Monday 06:00
Sunday hummus par recommendation drops 20% in next week's prep plan.
- Following Sunday
Waste falls; if it doesn't, the model adjusts again.
- Monthly
Waste trend appears in the operator's P&L brief.
Connected workflows
Waste signal connects prep, demand and inventory.
Shrink the waste pattern before next Sunday.
Start logging waste in Before Service this week — the pattern detector needs only a few shifts to act.
FAQ
Questions operators actually ask.
No. Before Service sits on top of the POS, schedule and vendor invoices you already use. We turn that data into the daily decisions a POS won't tell you — what to prep, who to staff, what to re-price, what to 86.