An ice cream shop inventory list is every flavor, cone, cup and topping you sell, counted at the same time each week: tubs in quarters, everything else by the case. With last week's count and what was made or delivered since, the difference is what you used, and what you used is how you set par, the amount you want on hand after the next batch or delivery. The count also tells you what's sitting too long: a flavor that barely moves takes freezer space and grows ice crystals while the favorite runs out on a Saturday. In the example below, a scoop shop counts 17 lines in about 15 minutes, finds its wild blueberry down to half a tub and its coffee still at three, and has $1,037.75 of stock on hand. Below is what to count, how to count tubs, setting par from use, what a scoop costs, and a free template.
The short version
- Count everything on the same day and time each week, before you make ice cream or take a delivery.
- Tubs are counted in quarters: a tub three-quarters full is 0.75.
- Count the dipping cabinet and the backstock freezer, and add them.
- Used = last count + made or received − this count.
- Set par from what you used, plus enough to last until the next batch or delivery.
- A 3-gallon tub gives about 85 scoops, so a scoop of vanilla costs about 33 cents.
- TaroStack counts on a phone, makes each flavor a recipe and each batch a lot. More below.
What to count
| Group | What's in it | Counted in |
|---|---|---|
| Ice cream and sorbet | Every flavor, in the dipping cabinet and the backstock freezer | Tubs, in quarters |
| Cones and cups | Sugar cones, waffle cones, cups, pint containers, spoons | Cases, in fractions |
| Toppings | Hot fudge, sprinkles, whipped cream, sauces | Cans, bags, cases |
| Ingredients | Base mix, flavorings, mix-ins, if you make your own | Cases and pounds |
Napkins and cleaning supplies can go on the list too, but they're cheap and slow; the lines that matter are the ones that run out on a busy day or cost the most when they go to waste. How to make a count quick and accurate is in how to count inventory.
A week at a scoop shop
Harbor Light Creamery, a made-up ice cream shop in Portland, Maine, I use in these examples, makes its own ice cream from a pasteurized base mix and counts on Monday morning before the week's batches:
| Item | Unit | Par | Last count | Made or received | This count | Used | Make or order | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vanilla bean | 3-gallon tub | 6 | 5.50 | 4 | 3.50 | 6.00 | 3 | $98.00 |
| Chocolate | 3-gallon tub | 5 | 4.00 | 3 | 4.25 | 2.75 | 1 | $127.50 |
| Strawberry | 3-gallon tub | 4 | 3.00 | 2 | 1.75 | 3.25 | 3 | $56.00 |
| Mint chip | 3-gallon tub | 4 | 3.50 | 2 | 2.50 | 3.00 | 2 | $77.50 |
| Coffee | 3-gallon tub | 3 | 2.75 | 1 | 3.00 | 0.75 | 0 | $99.00 |
| Wild blueberry | 3-gallon tub | 4 | 3.00 | 2 | 0.50 | 4.50 | 4 | $17.00 |
| Salted caramel | 3-gallon tub | 4 | 3.25 | 2 | 2.25 | 3.00 | 2 | $74.25 |
| Lemon sorbet | 3-gallon tub | 2 | 2.00 | 0 | 1.50 | 0.50 | 1 | $33.00 |
| Sugar cones | case of 200 | 2 | 2.00 | 0 | 1.50 | 0.50 | 1 | $54.00 |
| Waffle cones | case of 216 | 2 | 1.50 | 1 | 0.75 | 1.75 | 2 | $52.50 |
| Hot fudge | #10 can | 3 | 3.00 | 0 | 2.00 | 1.00 | 1 | $44.00 |
| Ice cream base mix | case of 6 half gallons | 8 | 6.00 | 10 | 5.00 | 11.00 | 3 | $180.00 |
Five more lines, cups, pint containers, spoons, sprinkles and whipped cream, are in the template; with them the stock on hand is $1,037.75. "Make or order" rounds up to whole tubs or cases, because nobody makes three-quarters of a tub.
Par from what you really use
Two lines in that week say the par is wrong. Wild blueberry used 4.5 tubs against a par of 4 and is down to half a tub on Monday, so it ran thin over the weekend; its par should be 5 or 6 in summer. Coffee used three-quarters of a tub and still has three, about four weeks' worth sitting in the freezer; its par should be 1 or 2. Par is a week's use plus enough to cover the time until the next batch or delivery, and it changes with the season: a July par in November fills the freezer with tubs that won't sell before they lose their texture. How par levels and reorder points work for any stock is in how much inventory to keep on hand.
What a scoop costs
A 3-gallon tub doesn't give its full volume in scoops: some is lost in dipping, at the bottom and the edges. Count your scoops for a few tubs; the example uses 85 four-ounce scoops a tub.
| Serving | Ice cream | Cone, cup, spoon | Toppings | Cost | Price | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single scoop, sugar cone | 1 scoop | $0.20 | $0.53 | $4.50 | 88.2% | |
| Double scoop, waffle cone | 2 scoops | $0.34 | $1.00 | $6.75 | 85.2% | |
| Kid's cup | ¾ scoop | $0.09 | $0.34 | $3.50 | 90.3% | |
| Hot fudge sundae | 2 scoops | $0.13 | $0.38 | $1.17 | $7.50 | 84.4% |
| Pint to go | about 3.9 scoops | $0.34 | $1.62 | $9.00 | 82.0% |
Those margins are on ingredients and packaging only. Staff, rent and the freezer's power come out of what's left; how the whole month works out for a small food business is in is a home bakery profitable, where the same arithmetic applies.
Get the template
Download the ice cream shop inventory sheet. The Weekly count sheet takes each item's unit, par, last count, what was made or received and this week's count, and works out what was used, what to make or order back to par in whole tubs or cases, and the value on hand. The Serving costs sheet takes each serving's scoops, the tub cost, the scoops a tub really gives and the cone, cup and toppings, and works out its cost and margin. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
A sheet counts what's there on Monday. It doesn't know that Thursday's batch of strawberry used the last of the berries, that two tubs of mint chip were thrown out after the freezer door was left open, or which batch of base mix went into the vanilla a customer says tasted off. And in summer, when the shop makes ice cream four days a week, a weekly count is six days late for the flavor that's about to run out.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps the batches, the counts and what happens in between.
Each flavor a recipe, each batch a lot. A flavor is a recipe of base mix, flavorings and mix-ins, and units convert: base bought by the case, used by the half gallon. Recording a batch takes the ingredients off stock from the lots used, at what you paid, and puts the tubs into a lot with their date, so the oldest tubs are dipped first.
Counts on a phone. Counting works on a phone, in the freezer with no signal, and before a count is posted it shows what each difference is worth in dollars. Tubs thrown out go off as adjustments with their reason, so a freezer failure is reported as one.
And the reorder list. Cones, cups and base mix sit on the reorder list in days of cover, at the rate each really moves, so the waffle cones are ordered before the weekend, and margins are reported by product.
| The job | Paper sheet | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Which flavor runs out first | Found on Saturday | Days of cover, from real use |
| Which base went into this vanilla? | Unknown | The batch's lots |
| Tubs lost when the freezer failed | Crossed off | Adjustments, by reason |
| What a scoop costs now | Last year's number | Each batch, at what it used |
Recipes, batches, lots, counting and margins by product are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.