Decompose actual vs theoretical food cost into waste, portioning, price, and theft, so the fix targets the real driver. Reach for this when food cost moves.
Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.
Are you the author of Close The Food Cost Gap?
Add the live security badge to your README. It updates with every re-scan.
[](https://www.skillsdirectory.com/skills/mcorbett51090-close-the-food-cost-gap)
---
name: close-the-food-cost-gap
description: "Decompose actual vs theoretical food cost into waste, portioning, price, and theft, so the fix targets the real driver. Reach for this when food cost moves."
---
# Skill: Close the food-cost gap
Actual food cost only means something against theoretical; the gap is the story.
## Step 1 — Build theoretical
Recipe-cost the period's mix to a theoretical food cost (§3 #2).
## Step 2 — Measure actual
Pull actual usage/cost; the variance is the gap.
## Step 3 — Attribute the gap
Split into waste, portioning drift, vendor price, and shrink/theft.
## Step 4 — Target the driver
Prescribe to the largest component, not 'food cost is high'.
## Output
A theoretical-vs-actual gap, a four-way attribution, and a targeted fix.
