What should a kitchen do when a delivery is short and prep is already planned?

Catch it at receiving, not at the cutting board

A short delivery only becomes a crisis when it is discovered at 2 p.m. by the cook who was about to use the missing item. The fix is a receiving habit: whoever accepts the delivery checks every line against the order and against the day's prep sheet before signing, and immediately flags anything short or wrong. That is a ten-minute check, and it moves the problem to a point in the day when there are still options.

Note the shortage on the invoice, call or message the vendor right away, and get an answer on whether it can be redelivered today. Many vendors can send a second truck or let you pick up, but only if they hear about it early. While that is being sorted, the lead should already be looking at the sheet to see which tasks depend on the missing item and which stations they feed. Related: How should you assign prep tasks across stations so nothing gets missed?

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.

Trace the shortage through the sheet

Pull up the day's prep list and find every task that uses the missing ingredient, directly or as a component. A missing case of tomatoes might touch a salsa, a salad garnish, a sauce base, and a sandwich station. List those tasks with their par-driven quantities and what is on hand for each. Often you will find that current stock covers some of the tasks for today and the shortage only really hits tomorrow. Related: How do you build a daily prep list from par levels the right way?

Rank the affected tasks by how much they matter for service. A component that goes into a top seller comes before a garnish on a slow item. Then decide for each one: make a smaller batch from what you have, substitute, buy locally, or pull the item for today. Write the decision on the sheet next to the task so the cook working it does not have to make the call alone or guess what happened. Related: How should shelf life cap how much of each item a kitchen preps at once?

Substitute carefully and mark it

Substitutions are the fastest fix and the most common source of quality complaints. If the missing item has a reasonable stand-in in house, use it, but the recipe owner or lead should approve it, and it should be marked as a substitution on the container and on the sheet. Guests notice when the salsa tastes different, and the line needs to know why before the first ticket comes in.

A short trip to a local grocery or a nearby restaurant can cover a small gap, and it is worth it for a high-volume item. Weigh the cost of that run against the cost of running out. For low-volume items, it is often better to 86 the dish for the day and tell the front of house early than to spend an hour and a car to save a few portions. Whatever you choose, make it a decision, not a default.

Reset tomorrow's plan and log what happened

Once today is handled, look at tomorrow. If the vendor is redelivering, some of today's skipped prep moves to tomorrow's sheet, which may mean extra hours or a shuffled sequence. If not, tomorrow's pars for the affected items need to reflect what is actually available. Update the sheet that evening rather than leaving the morning cook to discover the gap again. Related: Why should prep par levels change by day of the week for a kitchen?

Keep a short log of delivery problems: date, vendor, item, what was short, how it was resolved, what it cost in time or product. One shortage is bad luck. The same item short three times in a month is a vendor conversation, or a sign that the order is going in too late. The log also tells you which items are fragile enough to deserve a small safety stock, which is a par decision you can only make with the history in front of you.