Three cases of heirloom tomatoes. Half a case of black truffle aioli from that one special in March. A sheet pan of portioned salmon from Thursday that didn't move because the server forgot to 86 it. Sound familiar? That's not a food cost problem. That's a restaurant purchasing system problem, and it's running a quiet tax on your P&L every single week. The Number That Should Bother You A $5M restaurant with a 30% food cost is deploying $1.5M a year into purchasing decisions.