Waste forecasting for food businesses
PrepWise turns a two-minute daily log into a 7-day, per-item waste forecast in dollars - then tells you exactly what to prep less of, and proves whether it worked.
Free during pilot · no card · first forecast in minutes with a demo
Forecast · next 7 days
The Green Fork
Grilled salmon
Runs long on slow Wednesdays
Tomato soup
Mondays over-prep by ~20%
Dinner rolls
Holiday Friday: fewer covers
Prep about 20% less tomato soup on Monday.
Based on your last 12 Mondays · saves ≈ $34/month
Product preview · example data
18.3M tons
of wasted food was generated by U.S. restaurants in 2019
U.S. EPA, 2019 Wasted Food Report
22%
of the surplus food reported by U.S. Food Waste Pact foodservice signatories came from overproduction
U.S. Food Waste Pact, Data Report 2025
$7
saved for every $1 invested in cutting kitchen food waste, on average, across 114 restaurants over three years
Champions 12.3, Restaurants (2019)
Industry context, cited - not PrepWise results. Your own numbers live on your Impact page, computed from your logs with the methodology shown openly.
How it works
Four steps that fit inside a real kitchen week - and the last one is the part most tools skip: checking whether the advice actually worked.
01
Two minutes after service: station totals for prepared, sold, wasted. Or upload a weekly CSV or a sales export.
02
PrepWise measures each item's weekday pattern and trend from your own logs, then adjusts for weather, holidays, your events, and school breaks.
03
Ranked actions with dollars attached: "Prep ~20% less tomato soup on Mondays - saves ≈ $34/month." Printed prep sheet included.
04
Mark an action done and PrepWise measures waste before vs after, so your Monday meeting runs on evidence, not vibes.
Who it's for
Terminology, workflows, and forecasting adapt to the business type you pick - a grocery store never sees "menu items," and a dining hall's forecast knows when campus empties out.
Per-dish prep guidance by day of week. Stop cooking Monday's soup for Saturday's crowd.
Stocked vs sold vs spoiled per SKU, shelf-life risk flags, and reorder quantities that match real demand.
Forecasts that understand semesters: school breaks, game days, and closures are built into the math.
Daily bake counts from what actually sells each weekday, with holiday-eve adjustments.
Event-aware planning: mark busy or slow dates and the forecast reshapes around them.
Record kitchen surplus and plate waste separately for each dish, so production and portions can be looked at apart.
Methodology
PrepWise deliberately uses transparent, tested statistics instead of an opaque model. You can always see what a forecast is based on, how sure it is, and what would make it better.
Why this forecast
Grilled salmon · Friday
Weekday pattern
Fridays average 4.1 lbs left over across your last 9 Fridays.
Recent trend
Waste is trending down ~8% over the last 3 weeks.
Weather
Rain forecast Friday - your rainy-day logs show fewer walk-ins.
Holiday
None in the next 7 days.
Example explanation · your reasons come from your logs
Impact accounting
Waste is a line item before it's a mission statement. PrepWise reports both - with the sources shown, and estimates labeled as estimates.
Dollars lost
Exact
Wasted quantity × your unit cost, summed over any date range. Arithmetic, not estimation.
Carbon (CO₂e)
Cited
Wasted weight × per-category factors from Poore & Nemecek (2018), via Our World in Data.
Meals' worth
Convention
Wasted weight ÷ 1.2 lb per meal - the Feeding America convention for food-recovery accounting.
Branded PDF impact reportsfor owners, universities, and sustainability programs - with the recorded / forecast / estimated distinction kept visible, and a per-item breakdown of where the waste actually comes from. Surplus you can't prevent gets a donation nudge instead of a landfill.
Illustrative example
A walkthrough with example numbers - labeled as such, because we'd rather earn your trust than borrow it.
Friday, 4:45 pm
The manager logs station totals in two minutes. Salmon: 12 prepared, 9 sold, 3 wasted.
Sunday night
The forecast refreshes: "$146 at risk next week. Monday soup is the biggest line - 12 Mondays of history say you over-prep by about a fifth."
Monday, 9 am
The prep meeting opens the Action Center. Top action: prep 20% less soup. Owner assigned, marked planned. The prep sheet is printed and pinned at the pass.
Two weeks later
The action's card now reads: "Monday waste down 31% since marked done - ≈ $28/month saved so far." That line goes in the weekly email to the owner.
FAQ
The first forecast appears after a few logged days, marked as "learning mode." Around 14 days it becomes dependable, and confidence ratings are shown honestly per item the whole way. You can also upload historical CSV or spreadsheet exports to skip the wait.
A few minutes. You log station totals or top items - prepared, sold, wasted - not every plate. You can also upload a weekly spreadsheet or a sales export in one go.
Plain, tested statistics - not a black box. PrepWise measures each item's day-of-week pattern and recent trend from your own logs, then adjusts for local weather, public holidays, your own events, and school breaks. Every number comes with a one-sentence reason and a confidence level.
Dollars are exact arithmetic from your unit costs. Carbon uses per-category factors from Poore & Nemecek (2018). Meals use the Feeding America convention of 1.2 lb per meal. Estimated figures are always labeled as estimates.
PrepWise is free while it's in its pilot program. Pilot partners get direct support and help shaping the roadmap. Use the form below and we'll set you up.
Yes. Your data belongs to your business and is isolated per account with database-level row security. The public impact page only ever shows aggregate totals, never individual businesses.
Pricing & pilot
PrepWise is working with early kitchens, stores, and dining programs to prove measurable waste reduction. Pilot partners use everything free, get direct support, and shape what we build next.
Questions, a demo request, or a multi-location pilot - leave a note and we'll get back to you.
Set up in minutes. Log your first day tonight. See your first forecast this week.