F&B Cost Controller
Department: Finance / Operations
Reports to: Finance Head / Operations Head
Location: Bangalore
Employment type: Full-time, on-site
Role Overview
The F&B Cost Controller owns the accuracy and profitability of everything that moves through the kitchen, café, and confectionery production line. This person is the bridge between the culinary/production teams and finance — tracking the true cost of every recipe, batch, and menu item, and making sure what’s ordered, stored, produced, and sold all reconciles. The role spans a multi-vertical F&B operation: a dine-in café, packaged confectionery products, and retail/gifting inventory. This person works closely with the Executive Chef, Purchase Department, Stores, Finance, Operations and some other stakeholders to maximize profitability and minimize wastage.
The ideal candidate is precise, curious about margins, comfortable on the floor and in spreadsheets, and able to tell the operations team not just what the numbers are but why they moved.
Key Responsibilities
Costing & recipe management
- Build and maintain standard recipe cards and costing for every menu item, confectionery SKU, and gifting product
- Calculate and monitor food cost percentage, beverage cost percentage, and contribution margin per item
- Re-cost recipes when ingredient prices, portion sizes, or suppliers change, and flag items that fall below margin targets
Inventory & stock control
- Oversee daily, weekly, and monthly stock counts across kitchen, café, production, and retail
- Reconcile physical stock against system stock; investigate and report variances, wastage, and spoilage
- Maintain par levels and minimum order quantities to avoid both stock-outs and over-ordering
Purchasing & supplier control
- Verify purchase prices against agreed rates and quotations; challenge discrepancies
- Track price trends on key ingredients and packaging, and advise on cost impact
- Support supplier negotiations and periodic rate comparisons
Reporting & analysis
- Produce daily/weekly/monthly cost reports: actual vs. standard food cost, variance analysis, wastage reports, and slow-moving/expiring stock
- Analyse menu and SKU profitability; recommend menu engineering actions (re-price, re-portion, promote, or remove)
- Support monthly closing with accurate consumption, inventory valuation, and COGS figures
Controls & compliance
- Enforce receiving, storage, and issuing procedures; audit for compliance
- Monitor portion control and yield tests across production
- Identify and help close leakage points — theft, over-production, incorrect billing, and waste
Requirements
Essential
- Bachelor’s degree in Accounting, Finance, Hotel Management, or a related field
- 2–4 years of cost control experience in F&B, hospitality, cloud kitchen, QSR, or food manufacturing
- Strong grasp of food costing, inventory management, and variance analysis
- Advanced Excel / Google Sheets skills
- Hands-on experience with an inventory or F&B management system (e.g. Petpooja, DigiPos, POSist, Marketman, or similar) and familiarity with accounting software (Tally / Zoho Books)
- High attention to detail and comfort working with large volumes of transactional data
Preferred
- Experience across multiple verticals (café + packaged products + retail) rather than a single outlet
- Understanding of production/manufacturing costing and batch yields
- Familiarity with GST and its treatment across food service and packaged goods
Key Skills & Attributes
- Analytical and numbers-driven, with strong commercial instinct
- Organised and process-oriented; builds systems rather than firefighting
- Confident communicator who can hold suppliers, chefs, and managers accountable
- Discreet and trustworthy when handling cost and margin data
KPIs / Success Measures
- Actual food & beverage cost held within target of standard. Build real time variance reports as diagnostic tools for business health.
- Reduction in wastage, spoilage, and stock variance over time
- Timely, accurate cost reports and monthly closing inputs
- Improved contribution margins through menu/SKU engineering
Pay: ₹50,000.00 - ₹90,000.00 per month
Benefits:
- Food provided
- Provident Fund
Work Location: In person
