How to Keep Track of Expiring Ingredients in a Bakery

Write the use-by date on every case the moment it comes through the door, shelve by that date and not by arrival, and once a week compare how many days each lot has left with how many days it'll take you to use it. The first two habits stop you reaching past old cream for new cream. The third is the one most bakeries skip, and it's the only one that warns you about waste while there's still time to do something about it.

The short version

1. Date it at the door. Marker, tape, the use-by date in figures you can read from across the walk-in.
2. Shelve first-expired, first-out. Soonest date at the front, whatever day it arrived.
3. Keep one line per lot, not one per ingredient: what it is, the use-by date, how much is left.
4. Every Tuesday, before you order, work out what's going to expire before you can use it. The formula's below.
5. Decide that day. Bake it into a special, send it to the other shop, freeze it if it freezes, and order less next time.

Why "use the oldest first" isn't enough

Most kitchens run first-in, first-out: whatever arrived first gets used first. That works until arrival order and date order disagree, which in a bakery is most weeks. Your dairy's Monday delivery is dated the 29th. On Thursday you run short and somebody grabs six quarts from the cash-and-carry, dated the 19th. First-in, first-out says finish Monday's cream first. Do that, and Thursday's cream expires on the shelf behind it.

First-expired, first-out fixes this with one change: the date on the case decides, and the day it arrived doesn't matter. It costs nothing except the habit of reading the date when you put stock away. That's why the date has to be written big, on the side facing out, by whoever receives the delivery. A date printed in six-point type on the bottom of a carton is a date nobody's reading at 4 a.m.

(There's more on the difference, with examples, in FIFO and FEFO compared.)

The sheet: one line per lot

The usual inventory sheet has one line for heavy cream: 46 quarts. That number can't tell you anything about expiry, because the 46 quarts are three deliveries with three different dates. Tracking expiry means tracking lots, so one line for each delivery of each short-dated ingredient.

You don't need this for flour, sugar or salt. Start with whatever you've actually thrown away in the last three months. In most bakeries that's cream, milk, butter, eggs, fresh yeast, cream cheese, fruit and nut flours.

That's Monday, September 21, in a bakery that goes through about six quarts of heavy cream a day. Forty-six quarts on hand, nothing out of date, nothing on the shelf looks wrong. The last column disagrees.

The weekly check: days left against days of stock

A use-by date on its own tells you very little. Twenty-four quarts with five days left is fine if you use ten quarts a day, and a loss if you use two. What you need to know is whether you'll get through each lot in time, given that the older lots get used first.

Work down the lots from the soonest date.

Lot A has 2 days left. At 6 quarts a day you could use 12, and you have 10. It'll be gone in time.

Lot B has 5 days left, so 30 quarts of use before it expires. But the first 10 of those come out of lot A, which leaves 20 for lot B, and you have 24. Four quarts will expire on Saturday.

Lot C has 16 days, so 96 quarts of use, less the 34 quarts ahead of it, leaves 62. You have 12. No problem.

In Excel or Google Sheets, with the columns in the order shown (item in A, use-by in C, on hand in D, days left in E, daily use in F), days left is =C2-TODAY() and the at-risk column is:

=MAX(0, D2 - MAX(0, F2*E2 - SUMIFS(D:D, A:A, A2, C:C, "<"&C2)))

In words: what I could use before this lot's date, minus everything of the same item with an earlier date, is what I'll actually take from this lot. Anything beyond that is at risk.

Four quarts at $4.50 is $18. It's never a dramatic number, which is exactly why nobody chases it. But it's $18 most weeks, on cream alone, which is a bit over $900 a year from one ingredient in one walk-in.

(If you'd like the whole sheet laid out with its formulas, see how to build an inventory list with expiration dates.)

What to do with the answer

You've found out on Monday about a loss that happens on Saturday. That's five days to do one of four things.

Bake it. A cream-heavy special for Thursday and Friday. Four quarts is one extra batch of most things.

Move it. If you've got a second shop or a market stall that'll use it sooner, send it on the next run.

Freeze what freezes. Butter does, and well. Cream you're planning to whip doesn't. Know which is which before the day comes.

Order less. This is the one that lasts. If lot B is at risk most weeks, the standing order is too big or too infrequent. Set the reorder point from what you actually use, not from what the rep suggested two years ago.

And when something does expire, write it down as a loss, with the reason, before it goes in the bin. Otherwise the same thing happens next month and nobody can say how often.

Where this stops working

The sheet is right on the day somebody updates it. Every batch changes the quantities, and nobody making croissants at 4 a.m. stops to subtract three quarts from lot A in a spreadsheet. So the quantities drift, the at-risk column starts lying, and by the third week people have stopped opening it. A second person editing, a second site, or a recipe that draws on four short-dated ingredients at once all bring that day closer.

I wouldn't call that a discipline problem. A spreadsheet only knows what it's told, and this job needs something that finds out on its own. It's the usual story with spreadsheets.

How TaroStack does it

TaroStack keeps stock by lot from the moment it's received. The use-by date is entered once, at the door, on a phone, as the delivery is checked in. From then on first-expired, first-out is the default. When a baker records a batch of pastry cream, the cream comes out of the lot that expires soonest, and the batch record notes which lot it was, without anybody choosing. Stock that's out of date or on hold stops counting as stock you can use.

The weekly check above runs on its own. The expiring-stock forecast shows, for every lot, how much will actually be left on its date at the rate you're really using it, and what that's worth: the four quarts and the $18, for every short-dated item at every site, with a notice before it happens. Counting works with no signal, so the walk-in isn't a problem. Lots and expiry are part of every plan. Recording batches against recipes starts on Standard.

Questions people also ask

What is the difference between FIFO and FEFO?

FIFO, first-in first-out, uses stock in the order it arrived. FEFO, first-expired first-out, uses it in the order it expires. They give the same answer until a delivery arrives with a shorter date than something already on the shelf. For anything perishable, FEFO is the one to follow.

What is the Excel formula to track expiration dates?

Days left is =C2-TODAY(), where C2 holds the use-by date. Add conditional formatting that turns the cell red at 3 days or fewer and you can read the sheet at a glance. To find what will expire before you can use it, you need the at-risk formula above, because days left can't tell you that by itself.

What is the best way to track expiration dates in a small kitchen?

Track lots, not items. Write the date on the case when it arrives, and check once a week on the day before you order. Whether that lives on a clipboard, in a spreadsheet or in software matters less than whether the quantities are still true on the day you look.

What should a bakery do with expired stock?

Take it off the shelf so nobody reaches for it, record it as a loss with the item, lot, quantity and reason, then get rid of it. The record is what turns waste into information. Three entries for the same ingredient in a month is an ordering problem, not bad luck. Ask your accountant how written-off stock is treated on your return.