Know how many meals to cook before you start

Ask a tiffin owner when their day starts. Often the honest answer is the night before, lying awake adding up. How many veg. How many non-veg. Did the Sharmas pause. Did anyone message after nine.

The cook sheet answers that. It works because of one thing: the cut-off time.

Cut-off time

You pick a time each day when the next day's orders close. At that time the count is locked. Every pause, skip, plan change and extra that came in before it is counted. Nothing after it can change the number you cook to.

A spreadsheet can't do this, because it has no moment where the counting stops. A message at 11pm changes the count you made at 9pm. You find out at 6am.

What is on the cook sheet

How much of each dish

Not just "84 meals". It shows how much of each dish to make, in the measure you cook in. Rotis are counted. Dal is weighed. You set the measure for each menu item once, so you don't have to convert servings in your head.

Containers and packaging

How many containers, lids and bags you need today. Packaging is easy to forget, and easy to run out of halfway through the week.

Packing list for each customer

Every customer, what goes in their box, their extras for that day, any one-day quantity change, and their notes. Less spicy, no onion, extra rotis on Thursdays.

Customers notice when their notes are followed. Those notes are also the first thing that gets missed when someone new is packing.

Labels

Packing labels print in one click. Each box leaves the kitchen with the right name on it, so the driver is not matching names to lids in the car.

Menu

The cook sheet comes from a weekly menu for each meal plan. Your veg plan and non-veg plan each have their own menu, so you are not keeping two lists or sorting one in your head.

You set the menu one week at a time. You can plan next week without changing what you are cooking this week. You can also change the quantity for one day, like three rotis instead of four, without changing the dish.

Food cost

When you guess the count, you cook extra so you don't run short. Cook extra every day and your food cost goes up, even though your prices stay the same. For example, it can slowly go from 30% of your sales to 40%.

The menu report shows which dishes sold most and what each meal plan brought in. You can plan next week's menu from that.

Open the demo to see a cook sheet with sample data. Or read the nine numbers every tiffin kitchen should track to see where food cost fits.