Some products can destroy your profit in a week. Think about meat that becomes 20% more expensive, or fish where your supplier suddenly delivers a different quality. By maintaining a list of risk products, you spot problems before they eat into your margin.
What are risk products?
Risk products are ingredients that can affect your profit through:
- Price fluctuations: Meat, fish, vegetables that are seasonal
- Quality differences: Different suppliers, varying quality
- High volume: Ingredients you use a lot of
- High value: Expensive products that have major impact on your food cost
💡 Example:
Your best-selling steak has these risk products:
- Ribeye: €32/kg (was €28/kg last month)
- Truffle mayonnaise: €18/jar (seasonal product)
- Arugula: €8/kg (quality varies by supplier)
Together 60% of your ingredient costs - so high impact on margin.
How do you identify risk products?
Start with your 5 best-selling dishes. For each dish you look at:
- Most expensive ingredients: What costs more than €2 per portion?
- Volume ingredients: What do you use more than 10kg per week?
- Seasonal products: What varies in price throughout the year?
- Fresh products: What has short shelf life?
⚠️ Watch out:
Don't focus on all ingredients. A €0.50 increase in parsley doesn't matter. A €2 increase in salmon does.
Make your list practically useful
A good risk products list contains:
- Product name and supplier
- Current purchase price per unit
- Date of last price check
- Impact on food cost (what percentage of your ingredient costs)
- Alternative suppliers (backup options)
💡 Example list:
Risk products Bistro The Kitchen:
- Ribeye (Butcher Jansen): €32/kg - check weekly - 25% of steak
- Salmon fillet (Fish shop North): €28/kg - check weekly - 40% of salmon
- Truffles (Delicatessen BV): €180/kg - check monthly - 15% of pasta
- Lamb shoulder (Butcher Jansen): €24/kg - check weekly - 35% of lamb chop
How often should you check?
The frequency depends on the risk:
- Weekly: Meat, fish, seasonal vegetables
- Bi-weekly: Dairy, eggs, standard vegetables
- Monthly: Delicatessen, spices, shelf-stable products
Set a fixed time in your calendar. For example: every Monday morning 15 minutes for price check of your top 10 risk products.
💡 Example impact:
Ribeye increases from €28 to €32 per kg (+€4):
- Per steak (200g): +€0.80
- At 50 steaks per week: +€40
- Per year: +€2,080
By checking weekly you spot this immediately and can adjust your price.
What do you do with the information?
If a risk product becomes more expensive, you have 4 options:
- Increase selling price: Adjust your menu price
- Lower portion size: Serve 180g instead of 200g
- Find another supplier: Compare prices
- Replace ingredient: Look for alternatives
With a system like KitchenNmbrs you can immediately see how a price change affects your food cost, without manual calculations.
How do you create a risk products list? (step by step)
Analyze your top 5 dishes
Take your 5 best-selling dishes and write down all ingredients with their costs per portion. Focus on ingredients that cost more than €1.50 per portion or make up more than 15% of your total ingredient costs.
Identify risk factors per ingredient
Mark ingredients that are seasonal, fluctuate often in price, or where you depend on a single supplier. Also note the weekly volume you purchase of each risk product.
Create a monitoring schedule
Set a check frequency for each risk product: weekly for meat/fish, bi-weekly for dairy, monthly for shelf-stable products. Schedule a fixed time in your calendar for these checks.
✨ Pro tip
Check your top 5 risk products every Monday morning. It takes 10 minutes and prevents price increases from eating into your profit without you noticing.
Calculate this yourself?
In the KitchenNmbrs app you can do this in just a few clicks. 7 days free, no credit card.
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Frequently asked questions
How many risk products should I monitor?
Start with a maximum of 10-15 products. These are usually the most expensive ingredients of your best-selling dishes. More than 20 becomes unmanageable to keep track of.
What if a supplier increases their prices by 15%?
Calculate the impact on your food cost immediately. With a 15% increase on an ingredient that makes up 20% of your dish, your total food cost increases by 3 percentage points. Then adjust your selling price.
How do I prevent having to adjust prices too often?
Work with a margin buffer of 2-3 percentage points. If your food cost rises from 28% to 30%, you don't need to adjust your price right away. Adjust when it reaches 32-33%.
Should I also monitor beverages as a risk product?
Only if you make a lot of your own cocktails with expensive ingredients. Beer and standard wines are usually stable in price. Focus first on your kitchen ingredients.
What if I have multiple suppliers for the same product?
Note all suppliers with their prices. Check monthly whether you're still buying from the cheapest one. Sometimes price relationships change without you noticing.
How long should I keep old price data?
Keep at least 12 months to recognize seasonal patterns. This way you see for example that asparagus gets more expensive every May and you can anticipate this.
📚 Sources consulted
- EU Verordening 852/2004 — Levensmiddelenhygiëne (2004) — Official source
- EU Verordening 853/2004 — Hygiënevoorschriften voor levensmiddelen van dierlijke oorsprong (2004) — Official source
- EU Verordening 1169/2011 — Voedselinformatie aan consumenten (2011) — Official source
- NVWA — Hygiënecode voor de horeca (2024) — Official source
- NVWA — Allergenen in voedsel (2024) — Official source
- Codex Alimentarius — International Food Standards (2024) — Official source
- FSA — Safer food, better business (HACCP) (2024) — Official source
- BVL — Lebensmittelhygiene (HACCP) (2024) — Official source
- Warenwetbesluit Bereiding en behandeling van levensmiddelen (2024) — Official source
- WHO — Foodborne diseases estimates (2024) — Official source
Food Standards Agency (FSA) — https://www.food.gov.uk
The HACCP standards shown in this application are for informational purposes only. KitchenNmbrs does not guarantee that displayed values are current or complete. Always consult the FSA or your local authority for the latest regulations.
Written by
Jeffrey Smit
Founder & CEO of KitchenNmbrs
Jeffrey Smit built KitchenNmbrs from 8 years of hands-on experience as kitchen manager at 1NUL8 Group in Rotterdam. His mission: give every restaurant owner control over food cost.
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