How do you keep prep consistent across several locations and a central commissary?

Once a second location opens, prep stops being one kitchen's problem. Shared recipes, location-specific pars, and a clear split between what the commissary makes and what each store finishes are what keep the product the same.

Julien Jimenez

September 7, 2026 · 3 min read

The natural instinct when opening a second store is to copy the first store's prep sheet and hand it over. The recipes and yields should absolutely be identical, because that is what makes the food taste the same. The pars should not be, because a store in an office district and a store near a stadium do not sell the same things on the same days. Copying pars produces over-prep at the slow store and shortages at the busy one from day one. Related: What causes over prep and under prep, and how do you stop both?

Set up one master recipe list with standard batch sizes and yields, owned by whoever is responsible for the menu. Each location then keeps its own par levels by day, built from its own sales and counts. When a recipe changes, it changes once and every location inherits it. When a par changes, it changes only where the demand changed. Keeping those two layers apart is most of the work. Related: How do you build a daily prep list from par levels the right way?

Keep reading: How do you build a daily prep list from par levels the right way?, What causes over prep and under prep, and how do you stop both?, How should you assign prep tasks across stations so nothing gets missed?. See how PrepDeckr helps you kitchen prep lists and par-based prep sheets.

Decide what the commissary makes and what stores finish

A commissary earns its keep on items that are labor-heavy, hold well, and benefit from one consistent hand: stocks, sauces, braises, dressings, doughs, spice blends, portioned proteins. It is a poor fit for anything that must be fresh within hours or that changes texture in transit. Draw that line deliberately and write it down, so each store's sheet only contains the finishing tasks and the commissary's sheet only contains the production tasks.

The store sheets then treat commissary items like deliveries with a par: count what is on hand, compare to par, and order the difference. The commissary sheet aggregates those orders into its own production pars. This is where the two-layer structure pays off, because the commissary does not need to know each store's menu mix, only the totals it has to produce and by when.

Standardize labels, containers, and counting units

Consistency breaks quietly when one store counts dressing in quarts and another in "containers," or when the commissary ships in six-pound bags while the store's par is written in portions. Pick one counting unit per item across the whole company and print it on every sheet and every label. Match container sizes to the unit wherever possible so a count is a glance rather than a conversion.

Labels should carry the same fields everywhere: item, prep date, use-by date, and who made it. When a store finds a problem with a batch, that label tells the commissary which run it came from. When a store is over-prepping, the dates on its own containers tell the manager. None of this is complicated, but it only works if it is uniform, and uniformity is a decision someone has to make once and enforce. Related: How do you make a prep list any lead can run when you are out?

Review across locations, not just within them

Each store's lead should still review their own counts and pars weekly. On top of that, someone at the company level should look across stores at the same items. If one location's waste on a shared item is consistently higher, that is either a par problem, a shelf-life handling problem, or a training problem, and comparing stores is the fastest way to tell which. A single store can never see that on its own.

The same view catches good news. If one store's lead has found a better batch size or a smarter sequence for a shared item, that should become the standard everywhere. Multi-unit prep is not about control for its own sake. It is about making sure a fix discovered in one kitchen does not have to be rediscovered in each of the others. Related: How should you assign prep tasks across stations so nothing gets missed?

Key takeaways

Keep one shared master recipe list with standard yields, but let each location own its pars by day.
Define clearly which items the commissary produces and which the stores finish, and split the sheets accordingly.
Use one counting unit per item company-wide, with matching containers and uniform labels.
Review shared items across locations weekly so par, handling, and training problems become visible and fixes spread.

Written by

Julien Jimenez

Julien Jimenez is an independent software builder based in Paris. He designs, ships, and operates focused SaaS products for small businesses and independent professionals. Read the full author page.