Trim loss

Also called: trim waste

Trim loss is the weight removed in prep: bone, silverskin, peel, stems, tops and tails. Part of it is recoverable into stocks, sausage, staff meal or a second dish; part is genuinely waste. Separating the two is where the money is.

Worked example · What recovery is worth on one item

Beef trim generated weekly: 18 lb
Currently binned: 100%
Value if ground for the burger, at $6.20/lb: $111.60/week
Annual value of recovery: $5,803

The constraint is almost never the ingredient — it's whether there's a dish on the menu that can absorb it consistently.

The practical test for whether a recovery is real: does the recovered product replace something you'd otherwise buy, at a quality your menu actually claims? If yes, credit it in the butcher's test. If it becomes a dish nobody orders, you've moved the waste rather than removed it.

Recoverable vs. genuinely waste
Trim	Recoverable into	Test
Beef and pork trim	Ground, sausage, braise, staff meal	Is there a menu item that consumes it every week?
Bones and shells	Stock, demi, bisque	Do you actually make stock, or intend to?
Vegetable tops and peel	Stock, staff meal	Same test — intent isn't recovery
Fish frames	Fumet, stock	Only if used within a day
Silverskin, gristle, spoiled	Nothing	This is the honest waste line

Run the numbers

Yield & EP cost calculator

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The guide that works it through

Cooking Yield: How to Measure Cooking Loss and Cost the Cooked Portion

Measure cooking yield, turn it into a cost per cooked pound and portion, and compare USDA-published yields for common cuts, with ranges that show why your own test matters.

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