Control your food costs

Optimize your inventory levels and boost profits system-wide

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Discover comprehensive tools to minimize your actual vs. theoretical food costs (AvT)

Managing food costs is an ongoing challenge for many restaurants today. In the 2025 Restaurant Growth Insights Report, Operators ranked more accurate forecasting of food and labor costs as a top area where technology is helpful during economic uncertainty. Crunchtime provides a robust set of tools, reports and processes to effectively lower food costs across your operation. By reducing the difference between your actual costs and theoretical costs, Crunchtime alleviates the burdens of inventory management — all in one platform.

Learn more about cost control

Easily monitor and reduce your food cost variance

Multi-unit restaurants can add thousands and even millions of dollars to their bottom line by carefully monitoring their food cost variances and fixing any profit leaks. Managers can easily understand and track their actual vs. theoretical variances (AvT) each time they open the dashboard.

crunchtime food cost management avt software screenshot

Accurately track waste and respond quickly to issues

In the 2025 Restaurant Growth Insights Report, 85% of operators said real-time visibility into food cost tracking and margin management is extremely or somewhat important. Waste is a common area of profit loss in many restaurants. Crunchtime empowers managers to accurately track waste and quickly identify operational issues like incorrect recipe preparation, portioning, spoilage, or theft.

crunchtime food waste management software screenshot

Identify your most profitable (or costly) menu items

Always be aware of the highest and lowest margin items on your menu. Crunchtime's menu mix tools make it easy to analyze and cost your menu for maximum profitability and satisfied guests.

Crunchtime food cost management menu management software screenshot

Eliminate costly errors when receiving goods and invoicing

Quickly receive goods at the point of delivery and accurately count each item with an easy-to-use mobile app. Immediately address any price discrepancies, and if the goods arrive damaged, unusable, or just the wrong item, you can quickly resolve the vendor dispute and add pictures from your device’s camera.

crunchtime food cost management error reduction screenshot

Learn how top brands like Five Guys, Jersey Mike’s, and sweetgreen use Crunchtime to achieve ops excellence.

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"Crunchtime has the strongest food cost system in the industry, and the Actual versus Theoretical is probably the best in its class. Everyone uses that — it’s wonderful."

Regina Jerome
Senior Vice President of Information Technology
Uno Pizzeria & Grill

crunchtime customer uno pizzeria restaurant case study

What are actual versus theoretical food costs (AvT)?

Actual vs. theoretical food cost variance is a cost control methodology that restaurants use to help keep their food costs in check. The “actual food cost” is the total cost of all the food used to produce meals sold during the week, after you’ve accounted for any breakage, shrinkage, or waste. “Theoretical food cost” is what a restaurant’s food costs should be, based on current inventory costs of all ingredients for the meals sold, assuming perfect portions, no breakage, and no shrinkage. The difference between the two is the actual vs. theoretical (AvT) variance. Reducing this variance to its lowest possible point (0%) is the goal in optimizing your restaurant’s food costs.

What information or tools are required to determine actual vs. theoretical food costs?

Accurate local market pricing for all ingredients.
Accurate beginning and ending inventory count to determine usage.
Accurate ingredient amounts are specified for all recipes.
A system for accurately recording waste
A system for capturing, in real-time, recipes sold and their associated ingredients’ costs (and for depleting from inventory the individual ingredients)

With the above information, Crunchtime automatically calculates your AvT and clearly displays the metric on your dashboard. This keeps managers informed and prepared to make smarter decisions around profitability.

How do I track the cost and profitability of each menu item?

To determine the cost and profitability of each menu item, Crunchtime calculates the combined cost of each raw ingredient used (excluding labor costs). This cost can subsequently be subtracted from the menu item’s sales to determine the contribution margin or gross profit of the menu item.

Crunchtime automatically calculates this number for your restaurant, and even provides a Menu Engineering Analysis report to help take the guesswork out of categorizing menu items and ensure you're only selling products that are profitable and loved by your guests.

How do I track the cost of specific restaurant products?

Each time you purchase an item from a vendor, the cost should be entered into the system. With Crunchtime’s automated ordering and receiving of goods, this process is quick and seamless—when new shipments arrive, the platform will automatically enter the new goods into inventory with the receiver's approval.