Par level calculator: how much stock to keep and order

1. 1

   Find your average daily usage.

   Take the last 2–4 weeks of usage and divide by trading days. Usage = opening stock + deliveries − closing stock.

2. 2

   Count the days between deliveries.

   If deliveries come Tuesday and Friday, use the longer gap (4 days).

3. 3

   Add safety stock.

   A buffer of 10%–25% covers busy days and late vans. Use more for items you can't run out of.

4. 4

   Par = daily usage × days between deliveries + safety stock.

   This is the level you top back up to.

5. 5

   Order quantity = par + usage until delivery − stock on hand.

   Round up to whole packs.

A takeaway uses 84 kg of chips a week, open 7 days. That's 12 kg a day. Deliveries come Tuesday and Friday, so the longest gap is 4 days. The owner adds a 20% buffer.

• Par = 12 × 4 = 48 kg, + 20% = 57.6 kg
• Monday night count: 15 kg on hand. The van comes Tuesday morning, so allow 1 day of usage (12 kg) before it lands.
• Order = 57.6 + 12 − 15 = 54.6 kg
• In 2.5 kg bags, that's 21.84, so order 22 bags (55 kg).

Packaging gets a bigger buffer. It's cheap to store and doesn't go off. Fresh milk gets a smaller one. It has a short life and comes every day. Press Load example in the calculator to see these four items worked out.

A par that's too high is cash sitting on a shelf. With fresh food, it ends up in the bin. A par that's too low means 86'd dishes on a Saturday night.

Ways to tighten your pars:

• Review pars monthly, and before seasonal changes such as Christmas or summer terrace trade.
• Use separate pars for weekdays and weekends if your trade swings a lot.
• Track waste by item for two weeks. If an item is always binned, cut its par or its portion.
• Rotate stock first in, first out (FIFO), and check use-by dates at every count.
• Sell it before it goes. Put short-dated items on a special. A digital menu lets you add a dish in minutes.

UK rule worth knowing: under England's Simpler Recycling rules, workplaces with 10 or more full-time equivalent employees (counted across the whole business, not per site) have had to separate food waste for collection since 31 March 2025. Smaller workplaces must follow by 31 March 2027. Wales and Scotland have their own rules. Less waste means smaller collection bills.

Menuthere is an ordering platform, not stock software. Keep your pars on this calculator or a sheet. Menuthere helps on the selling side:

• Mark a dish as sold out. Switch a dish, a size or a whole category off when you run out. Customers see it as unavailable on your online and QR menus and can't add it, until you switch it back on. No more orders for things you've run out of.

Pair this calculator with the recipe cost calculator and the GP calculator to see what each dish really costs you. For the full process, read our restaurant inventory management guide.