Food Costing & Inventory Management

Know your true food cost, on every dish, at every venue.

The best food costing software connects inventory, recipes, supplier invoices and POS sales in one system. This gives hospitality businesses a real-time view of actual cost of goods sold (COGS), accurate recipe costs and margins by venue, rather than relying on last month’s figures.

When comparing platforms, look for live ingredient pricing, recipe-level margin tracking, multi-venue reporting and direct POS and invoice integrations. These capabilities let operators understand and act on food costs without spreadsheets or a specialist standing between them and the numbers.

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Waitress serving food to customer in outdoor restaurant at sunset with overlays showing staff details, menu item stats, and a bar chart of orders.

Over 10,000 successful hospitality owners and managers love Loaded

Recipe and menu consistency

How do I keep recipe costs accurate as supplier prices move?

Recipe costing software should keep recipes, pricing and stock identical across every venue, and show you labour and cost of goods against sales in real time, at both a venue and a group level. When a supplier price moves and your recipe costs don't update, your margin is already wrong — you just haven't seen it yet.

Recipes and menu pricing managed centrally and synced to every venue, not maintained site by site.
All stock received in real time via AI invoice scanning, so ingredient costs update as prices move.
Recipe costing down to the individual item, so every venue works from the same margin picture.

Beverage & stock control

Does inventory software actually handle beverage properly?

Most inventory tools were built for kitchens, not bars — forcing every bottle of beer and glass of wine into a full recipe just to track it. Loaded lets you sell and track stock by the portion, so bar teams aren't fighting the system to log a simple pour.

Sell and track by the portion — a glass of wine or a bottled beer, no recipe build required first.
Stocktakes and variance reporting across food and beverage in the same platform, not two seaparate systems.
Pour cost and wastage visible by venue, so a spike gets caught as it happens.

Invoice, stock and POS reconciliation

Can I actually trust the numbers, or do they need checking by hand?

Loaded scans supplier invoices and matches them against what was actually received, so a pricing error or short delivery gets caught before you pay it — not discovered weeks later in a stocktake variance. Sales revenue reconciles directly against your POS too, so you're never relying on numbers nobody has checked.

Invoices scanned and matched to stock received, automatically.
Recipe costs update the moment a supplier price changes, not weeks later.
Product revenue reconciles directly against your POS, so sales figures are never a guess.

Consolidated reporting

How do I see margin performance across the group as well as site by site?

It's hard to know which of your locations are actually performing when each one is a separate login, a separate report, or a separate spreadsheet someone has to stitch together. Loaded pulls sales, labour and stock into one consolidated view across your whole group, so you can compare site to site and catch a problem location early, not months later.

Single site and consolidated group reporting.
Revenue, labour and COGS all driven from the same platform.
Catch a problem location early, before it drags down the rest of the group.

What to look for in food costing and inventory software

Beverage handled by the portion, not forced into a full recipe for every glass of wine or bottled beer.

Recipe pricing and product revenue that reconcile live against your POS — not manual re-entry you have to trust blindly.

Supplier invoices reconciled against stock actually received, before you pay — not after.

Simple enough that a venue manager can see a variance and understand why it happened — not something only one head-office specialist can decode.

Honest comparison

How Loaded compares on food costing and inventory

A quick, honest look at where Restoke and Supy fall short for venue teams — and how Loaded handles the same problems.

01
Does Loaded handle beverage differently than Restoke or Supy?
Restoke & Supy
Every drink needs a full recipe built first — even a bottled beer.
Loaded
Sell and track stock by the portion — a glass of wine, a bottled beer — with no recipe required first.
02
Does recipe pricing reconcile against my POS automatically?
Supy
Recipe sell prices are entered manually and product revenue can't be reconciled back to the POS.
Loaded
Live POS sales and recipe costing sit in one connected system, reconciling automatically.
03
Are supplier invoices reconciled to statements, so your cost of goods matches your P&L?
Supy & Restoke
No system for reconciling invoices against supplier statements, so the cost of goods on site can drift from what hits your accounting system and P&L.
Loaded
Invoices are reconciled to supplier statements, so the cost of goods on site always matches what hits your accounting system and profit and loss.
04
Can my venue managers understand a stock variance themselves?
Supy
Built for a dedicated procurement specialist — managers can get in, but can't easily decode a variance or understand what they're seeing.
Loaded
Built so the people running the venue can see, understand and trust their own numbers.

Do you know what your menu is really costing you?

Operators who move to Loaded see cost of goods drop by 8% on average, because every recipe is finally priced against what you're actually paying today, not last time you updated your menu.

Why hospitality groups choose Loaded for food costing and inventory

Catch margin problems before month-end

When a venue's food cost drifts, Loaded shows you exactly where and why, so the fix is the same playbook you've already proven elsewhere, not a scramble through spreadsheets after the numbers have already gone wrong.

Nail your recipes once, apply them everywhere

Set your recipes, costings and supplier prices at one venue, then apply that exact same setup to every new site as you grow — instead of rebuilding the same recipes from scratch each time.

Works with what you already run on site

25+ POS integrations including Square, Lightspeed, Bepoz, SwiftPOS and Idealpos - no ripping anything out.

One system, every venue, no specialist required

Manage stock, recipes and reporting for your whole group from a single account — built so a venue manager or chef can see and trust their own numbers, not just one head-office specialist.

LOADED WORKS WITH LEADING POS

+ 20 more partners

See how Loaded can work for your group

Whether you're running 3 venues or 30, every hospitality business is unique, so all our demos are delivered one-on-one by a Growth Expert who has actually run a venue, not read about one.

We'll take the time to understand your business.

You tell us what you'd like to achieve.

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"Having everyone seeing and working from the same platform, very quickly turned into increased performance.

Lucy Whelan, Joe's Garage + Lone Star Group

Buyer's checklist

How to choose food costing and inventory software

Most food costing tools look similar at a glance. The real differences show up once your team is using it day to day — so it's worth checking five things before you commit.

01POS integration
Does POS data sync in real time, and how do they check it's accurate?
Good food costing software syncs sales data from your POS in real time, not on an overnight batch. Ask the vendor to confirm real-time sync and how they catch and correct discrepancies.
Ask them to confirm real-time POS sync and how accuracy is checked.
02Bar and kitchen
Can bar and kitchen items both be tracked without a full recipe first?
Look for software that lets you sell and track stock by the portion — a glass of wine, a bottled beer. Kitchen-first tools force every drink into a recipe.
Have them cost a bottled beer in the demo.
03Invoices
Are invoices reconciled to supplier statements, so your P&L reflects true cost of goods?
The best systems reconcile invoices against supplier statements, so the cost of goods on site always matches what hits your accounting system and profit and loss — not just checked against deliveries in isolation.
Ask how invoice-to-statement reconciliation feeds your P&L.
04Who can use it
Can a venue manager understand a variance without a specialist?
If only one head-office specialist can decode a stock variance, venue managers stop engaging. Look for software built so the people running the venue trust their own numbers.
Put a venue manager, not head office, in the trial.
05Live costing
Does recipe costing update automatically as supplier prices change?
If margins only update when someone re-enters prices by hand, they're out of date the week you start. Automatic recalculation is the difference between a costing tool and a spreadsheet.
Ask what happens to a recipe when one invoice price moves.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to replace my POS to use Loaded's stock and food costing tools?

No. Loaded works alongside your existing POS — Lightspeed, Tevalis, Idealpos, Bepoz, SwiftPOS and others — syncing sales data in the background so recipe costs and product revenue stay reconciled without replacing anything your team already uses.

Do I need to build a full recipe for every drink, even a bottled beer?

No. Loaded lets you sell and track stock by the portion — a glass of wine, a bottled beer — without building a recipe first. Most inventory tools force every drink into a full recipe, which is why bar teams end up fighting the system.

How does Loaded keep recipe costs accurate as supplier prices change?

Invoices are scanned and matched against stock received, so ingredient costs update as soon as a supplier price changes — not weeks later when a stocktake finally reveals the variance.

Can a venue manager understand a stock variance, or does it need a specialist?

Loaded is built so the people running the venue can see their numbers and understand why a variance happened — not something that only makes sense to one head-office procurement specialist.

What does food costing and inventory software cost with Loaded?

Pricing is per venue, per month, with a discount for annual billing. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required — talk to us for current pricing for your group size and POS integration.