How do I stop food waste and margins from slipping in my kitchen?

You manage food cost now, and what still slips through your fingers is the leak you cannot see in the moment, the waste at the end of the night, the margin that erodes a little each week. Those get away from you not because you are careless but because they are made of many small things, none big enough to catch on its own. Waste and margin are won on paper, not by feel. What gets measured stops sliding. When you weigh what goes in the bin, track what each dish truly costs, and watch the numbers week to week, the leaks become visible, and visible leaks get fixed. Pick one thing to measure for a week, the waste bin's weight, or the real cost of your top-selling dish, and write it down daily. One number, watched honestly, will show you where the money is running out. Fix that, then measure the next. Control comes from seeing, and seeing comes from counting.