Ingredient optimization: cuts and breakdowns
Optimize how you use your ingredients and manage cuts and breakdowns efficiently in tspoonlab. Learn how to reduce waste and maximize your kitchen's profitability.
What is a cut?
A cut refers to the process of dividing an ingredient into smaller pieces or specific shapes, depending on what a recipe needs. Cuts are essential in the kitchen to ensure even cooking and an attractive presentation. Common examples include cutting vegetables into julienne (thin strips), brunoise (small dice), or slices.
What is a breakdown?
A breakdown is the process of separating an ingredient — usually an animal product such as meat or fish — into its different usable parts. The goal is to maximize the use of each part of the ingredient, assigning each one to a different preparation according to its characteristics. For example, when you break down a chicken, you separate the breasts, thighs, wings, and carcass, and each part can be used in different recipes, optimizing resources and reducing waste.
To guide you through the video tutorial, the on-screen steps in tspoonlab match the following guide:
Step by step to add cuts & breakdowns
Access the products tab
Go to the Offer section in the platform.
Open the Ingredient tab.
Select the product you want to create a cut for, for example, onion.
Add a cut
Click the three dots next to the "Cuts & Butchery" section.
Select "Edit cuts".
Give the cut a name, for example, Brunoise.
Add a breakdown
Selecting the ingredient to break down: just like the cut process, select the ingredient you want to break down, for example, a whole chicken.
Click the three dots next to the "Cuts & Butchery" section.
Select "Edit breakdown".
Give each part of the breakdown a name, for example, breast, thigh, wing.
Options to calculate breakdowns and cuts
tspoonlab offers four methods to calculate breakdowns and cuts:
Direct entry: tspoonlab distributes 100% of the base product by assigning fixed percentages to each part (e.g., Breast 40%, Thighs 40%, Waste/unusable matter 20%).
Average: lets you average an ingredient's seasonal waste by comparing the initial weight against the usable weight. For example, if you record an entry of 5 kg of potatoes (gross weight) and after peeling you get 4 kg ready to cook (net weight), the system detects 1 kg of unusable matter (20% waste). As you accumulate several records, tspoonlab calculates the weighted average to stabilize the ingredient's cost in your recipe costings.
Last entry: uses the last recorded weight entry to calculate the yield.
Selected: you manually choose which weight entry to use.
Managing waste within cuts and breakdowns
During the cut or breakdown process, you can indicate which parts of the ingredient will be discarded. This lets the app calculate the product's real yield.
Visual integration for cuts and breakdowns
Adding images improves clarity in the workflow and makes team training easier, turning the platform into an educational as well as an operational tool. In the cut or breakdown record, you can add images of the product in its gross and net state (gross image and net image).
This also helps you get a clearer, more detailed overview.
Move cuts to breakdowns and vice versa
Depending on your needs, you can reorganize the parts of cuts and breakdowns flexibly, moving a cut to a breakdown or vice versa. To do it, click the three dots in the "Cuts & Butchery" box and select "Move from cuts to butchery" or "Move from butchery to cuts".
📌 Note: You can update your cuts' and breakdowns' parameters at any time.
Did you find this article helpful?
If you need further assistance, contact support by clicking the built-in Support Chat in the bottom-right corner of your screen.