You buy a kilo of onions. You do not put a kilo of onions in the pot — you put in what is left after peeling. Trim loss is the gap, and it belongs in your cost.
In the app the field is labelled Wastage. It is the planned loss. The unplanned one — spoiled, expired, dropped — is Waste, and is declared separately.
Net and gross
Net Qty — what the recipe uses. What ends up on the plate.
Gross Qty — what leaves your inventory to produce that net.
For a product with no trim loss, they are the same. With trim loss, gross is larger, and gross is what you paid for.
The maths
At 20%, 100 g net needs 125 g gross. Not 120 — you divide, you do not add. The share you throw away is a share of what you bought, not of what you kept.
That difference matters. Costing 100 g of a 20% product at 120 g underprices it by 4%, on every dish, forever.
Setting it on the product
On the product’s sheet, Edit, section Recipe: Default wastage (%). It is the venue’s default for that product. Set 20% on onions and every recipe using onions costs at 125 g per 100 g used. Change it once, every recipe that inherits it recosts.
That is usually right: peeling loss is a property of the onion, not of the dish.
Changing it in one recipe
Sometimes the dish decides. Onions for a soup are peeled; onions roasted whole are not. In the recipe’s Ingredients table, the Wastage % cell can be typed.
| Ingredient | Net Qty | Unit | Wastage % | Gross Qty | Cost | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Onions - Yellow | 400 | g | 120.00 % | 3500 | $1.10 | Library |
| Garlic | 10 | g | 20 | 10 | $0.09 | Library |
| Butter - Unsalted | 30 | g | — | 30 | $0.42 | Library |
| Beef Stock | 600 | ml | — | 600 | $1.38 | Sub-Recipe |
- 1A grey figure is inherited from the product’s default wastage.
- 2A typed figure is set on this recipe. 0 means no trim loss in this recipe; an empty cell means inherit.
- 3Gross Qty follows: 400 g net at 20% is 500 g gross.
Leave the cell empty to inherit the product’s default — the figure then shows in grey. Type a figure, 0 included, and it is set on this recipe only. 0 is not the same as empty: 0 means “no trim loss in this dish”, empty means “use the product’s default”.
On the product’s sheet, the list of recipes using it shows each recipe’s wastage, and whether it is set on the recipe or inherited from the venue default.
What counts
Trim, peel, bone, shell. Anything that arrives and does not reach the plate every single time you prep it.
Not spoilage. Not a dropped tray. Not a portion sent back. Those are real losses — declare them as waste. Put your spoilage rate in here and your recipes carry it forever; you will never see it as a problem.
Getting the number
Weigh it. Once. Take a case, prep it as you normally would, weigh what you keep.
A guess is better than zero, and weighing is better than a guess. Weigh the expensive ones first — 3% on saffron and 3% on onions are not the same conversation.
Fish, meat and seafood usually arrive already worked; a fillet has no peel.
Zero
Most products have none. A bottle of oil is a bottle of oil. Leaving it blank is correct.
Cooks see the recipe without wastage, gross quantities or costs.
Next
Waste — the loss nobody planned.