A restaurant chain finds the stores, orders and recipes that do not add up
A quick-service restaurant chain wanted to know which stores needed attention and where food cost was slipping. Four checks on sales, purchase prices, orders and recipes point to them.
From our own project and product work. Client names and identifying details are removed, and some figures are rounded.
The situation
A quick-service restaurant chain runs many stores. Each one buys ingredients, takes orders and cooks to a standard recipe. Small differences store by store add up: a price paid above the norm, a recipe that uses more of an ingredient than it should, an order pattern that does not look right. The team wanted to find them without visiting every store.
What we look at
- Store sales, ingredient consumption and expenses
- Purchase prices for the same item across vendors, stores and periods
- Customer and staff orders
- Ingredient quantities used against each standard recipe
The four checks
| Check | What it flags |
|---|---|
| Critical stores | Stores whose sales, consumption or expenses are out of line with their peers |
| Price variance | The same item bought at different prices across vendors, transactions or periods |
| Order outliers | Customer or staff orders with unusual quantities, frequency or value |
| Recipe outliers | Ingredient usage that differs from the standard recipe |
What happens
Each check produces a short list for the people who can act on it. Critical stores go to management. Price differences go to procurement. Order outliers, including staff orders, go to the control team. Recipe outliers point to a recipe set up wrongly, consumption reported wrongly, or a practice in the kitchen that needs a look.
The work is running through 2026, and each round of feedback sharpens the rules.
What changes
- From visiting stores to ranking them. Attention goes to the stores the data points to.
- From average food cost to recipe by recipe. A rise in cost is traced to the ingredient and the recipe.
- From price lists to prices paid. Procurement sees what was actually paid, item by item.
Products and services
CompliBear runs checks like these on every transaction. See continuous controls monitoring and pricing and margin.