Krave Kitchen

Krave Kitchen is a cloud kitchen in Surat serving authentic Indian comfort food: curries, biryani and fresh rotis, through Swiggy, Zomato and takeaway.

The problem

Orders were steady and the kitchen was busy every evening, but the month-end numbers never showed it. The owners could not say which dishes made money once aggregator commission, packaging and discounts came off. Food cost was running at about 38% of sales, and nobody knew why.

What we found

We started where the CulinaPro Method starts after the brief: Understand. A week of purchase bills, recipes and order data showed three leaks.

• No costed recipes. Prices had been set by looking at competitors. Several best-sellers lost money once the platform took its cut.
• A menu that was too long. 72 items across four cuisines, many sharing no ingredients. Slow movers tied up stock that spoiled before it was used.
• Portions by eye. The same biryani went out at different weights depending on who was on the line.

What we did

This was the Improve stage, in four steps.

1. Costed every recipe down to the gram, then added commission, packaging and the average discount to get a true margin per order on each platform.
2. Engineered the menu. We sorted every dish by popularity and margin, cut 31 items, merged prep across the rest and repriced the dishes that were losing money.
3. Fixed portions. Standard recipe cards, a scale on the pass and portion scoops for rice and gravies. Each card shows the dish photo and its target weight.
4. Tightened purchasing. A par-level sheet for the shorter menu, so orders follow what actually sells rather than habit.

What changed

Within ten weeks food cost fell from 38% to 31% of sales. The menu is shorter, prep is faster and less stock goes to waste. Every dish now has a known margin after commission, so the owners can decide on discounts and new items with the numbers in front of them.

We still check in each month (Nurture): new dishes are costed before they go live, and the margin sheet is updated whenever supplier prices move.

What you can copy

• Cost every dish after aggregator commission and packaging, not before. That is the number that matters for delivery.
• If a dish shares no ingredients with the rest of the menu, it has to sell very well to earn its place.
• Weigh portions. A few grams over on every order adds up to whole points of food cost.