The target on-hand quantity of an ingredient or supply — the amount you keep in stock to get through to the next delivery.
Par Level
The target on-hand quantity of an ingredient or supply — the amount you keep in stock to get through to the next delivery.
A par level is the standard quantity of an item a restaurant aims to keep on hand — enough to cover demand until the next delivery, without over-ordering perishables into waste. Set par at 10 cases of an ingredient and you reorder enough to bring stock back up to 10 whenever a count comes in under it.
Pars turn ordering from guesswork into a repeatable routine and are a front-line defense against both stockouts and spoilage.
- How they are set: usage rate between deliveries, plus a safety buffer, adjusted for seasonality and specials.
- How software helps: inventory platforms such as MarketMan track counts against par and can suggest or generate purchase orders automatically.
Because food cost and waste both hinge on ordering discipline, well-maintained par levels are one of the highest-leverage habits in the back of house.