Central Kitchen and Commissary Operations for Multiple Outlets

Run a central kitchen supplying several outlets: production planning, batch records, labeling and shelf life, cold-chain transport, receiving, returns and transfer costing.

A central kitchen usually starts as a good idea about consistency. Make the gravies, doughs, marinades and sauces in one place, with one recipe and one skilled team, and send them out to the outlets ready to finish. Every outlet's butter chicken tastes the same, outlet kitchens get smaller, and you buy in larger quantities.

All of that is true. What is less obvious at the start is that you have built a small food manufacturer with its own logistics operation, and that most of the problems will show up in the handoffs: between outlet and commissary on the order, between batch and label, between the van and the outlet's walk-in, and between the commissary's books and the outlet's food cost. This guide is about those handoffs.

The order cycle

Everything runs off outlet orders, so the order process needs the most discipline.

Set a fixed cutoff. For a commissary delivering daily, a common pattern is that outlets order by 4 pm for next-day delivery, and the commissary produces overnight or early morning. For items with longer production times (stocks, slow braises, fermented doughs), the cutoff needs to be two days ahead, and outlets need to know which items fall into which window.

Outlets should order against par, not from memory. Each outlet keeps a par for each commissary item based on its sales, counts what it has on hand at the same time each day, and orders the difference. If outlets order by feel, the commissary ends up making what the loudest manager asked for. Setting par levels covers the math; the same method works for commissary items as for anything else.

Late orders are the commissary's biggest headache. Decide the rule early: either late orders wait until the next cycle, or the commissary keeps a small buffer of fast-moving items for emergencies, and the outlet is charged for the extra handling. What does not work is the commissary chef quietly absorbing every late call, because then the cutoff stops meaning anything.

Production planning

Once orders are in, the commissary consolidates them into a production plan: total quantity of each item across all outlets, plus any buffer, converted into batches.

Say five outlets have ordered makhani gravy: 12, 8, 15, 10 and 6 liters, for a total of 51 liters. Your standard batch is 20 liters, so you make three batches (60 liters), and the extra 9 liters goes into buffer stock with its own label and expiry. Or you make two full batches and one half batch, if the half batch scales cleanly. Decide these conversion rules once per item, write them on the recipe card, and the night team does not have to improvise.

The production plan should also sequence work around equipment and allergens. If the same tilting kettle makes a dairy-free curry base and a cream sauce, the dairy-free one goes first, then a full clean. Allergen cross-contact at a commissary affects every outlet at once, so it deserves more care than it gets in a single restaurant.

Batch records

Every batch needs a record. It is the commissary's memory, and it is the first thing you will want if a customer gets sick or an outlet reports that the gravy tastes wrong.

A batch record should capture:

Item name and batch number
Date and time produced, and by whom
Quantity produced
Lot numbers or delivery dates of key ingredients (especially proteins, dairy and anything with an allergen)
Cooking temperature reached, where relevant
Cooling start time, and temperatures at the checkpoints
Use-by date assigned
Who checked and signed

The batch number should go on every container from that batch, so an outlet can tell you exactly which batch they are holding. A simple format like item code, date and sequence (MKG-0929-02) is enough.

Cooling is where commissaries most often go wrong. Large batches of thick sauce cool slowly, and a 40-liter stockpot left on the bench will not hit safe temperatures in time. Under the US FDA Food Code, cooked foods must cool from 135°F to 70°F within two hours, and to 41°F or below within a total of six hours. In India, FSSAI Schedule 4 requires chilled food to be held at 5°C or below. Whatever your rules, plan for shallow pans, ice baths or a blast chiller, and record the checkpoints.

Labeling and shelf life

Every container that leaves the commissary should carry a label with:

Product name
Batch number
Production date
Use-by date
Storage instructions (for example, "keep at 41°F / 5°C or below")
Allergens present

Set shelf life per item, in writing, and do not let it drift. For ready-to-eat items held cold, the FDA Food Code's default is a maximum of seven days at 41°F or below, counting the day of preparation as day one, and that clock does not reset when the item reaches the outlet. Many items should have a shorter life for quality reasons. If you want a longer one for a specific product, that usually needs validation (testing or a documented process like acidification or vacuum packing under a HACCP plan), not a guess.

The outlet should never relabel commissary product with a later date. If they portion or decant it, the new container carries the original use-by. Date marking explains how this works under the Food Code, and the principle is the same anywhere.

Transport and transfer notes

The van is part of the cold chain. Chilled product should leave the commissary at or below 41°F (5°C), travel in a refrigerated vehicle or properly insulated containers with cold packs, and arrive at that temperature. Frozen product should stay frozen. Hot transport is possible but harder to do well; most commissaries send food chilled and let the outlet reheat.

Each delivery should travel with a transfer note, which is the commissary's version of an invoice. It lists:

Outlet name, delivery date and time
Each item, batch number, quantity and unit
Transfer price per unit and line total
Temperature at dispatch
Driver name

Print two copies, or better, send it digitally so the outlet can confirm receipt against it. The driver should log the vehicle temperature at dispatch and at each drop. If the route is long or there are many drops, a data logger in the vehicle is cheap and settles arguments.

Receiving at the outlet

Outlets tend to treat commissary deliveries more casually than supplier deliveries, because "it's our own kitchen." This is a mistake. A commissary is just another supplier as far as food safety is concerned, and the receiving check should be the same:

Probe a sample of chilled items and record the temperature
Check labels: correct item, batch number present, use-by date reasonable
Count against the transfer note
Check packaging for leaks or damage
Sign the note with any discrepancies written on it, before the driver leaves

Anything above 41°F (5°C) on arrival should be refused or held for the manager's decision, with the reading recorded. Use the same food receiving checklist the outlet uses for external suppliers.

Returns and credits

Things will go wrong: short deliveries, wrong items, a leaking container, a sauce that split in transit, a batch that the outlet thinks is off. The process for handling it needs to be agreed before the first argument, not during it.

A workable rule set:

Discrepancies on delivery (short, wrong item, damaged, out of temperature) are written on the transfer note and signed by the driver. The commissary issues a credit automatically.
Quality complaints after delivery are reported the same day, with a photo and the batch number. The product is held, not thrown away, until the commissary decides.
If a batch is suspected unsafe, the commissary checks the batch record and contacts every outlet that received that batch. This is why batch numbers matter.
Expired product at the outlet is the outlet's waste, not a commissary return. Otherwise outlets over-order with no consequence.

Track returns and credits by item and outlet each month. A single outlet with many returns usually has a receiving or storage problem. A single item returned by many outlets usually has a recipe, packaging or shelf-life problem.

Costing transfers

How you price items moving from commissary to outlet decides whether outlet food cost numbers mean anything.

The simplest approach is to transfer at standard cost: ingredient cost per unit from the recipe, plus a loading for commissary labor, packaging and overheads. For example, if a liter of makhani gravy costs ₹140 in ingredients and the commissary's labor, packaging and overheads come to roughly 25% on top of ingredient cost, the transfer price is ₹175 per liter. The outlet books ₹175 per liter as food cost; the commissary's books show a recovery of its overheads.

Some groups transfer at ingredient cost only and treat the commissary as a central overhead. That makes outlet food cost look better than it really is and hides the commissary's cost. Others add a margin and treat the commissary as a profit center. Either can work for internal reporting; what matters is that everyone knows which method is in use, prices are updated when ingredient costs move (at least monthly, and immediately for big swings), and the method does not change mid-year. For franchised outlets buying from a franchisor's commissary, transfer pricing becomes a commercial and legal question too, so get advice before setting it.

The commissary should also run its own stock count and yield checks. If 100 kg of onions should yield 85 kg of peeled, sliced product and you are getting 75 kg, that 10 kg is a cost every outlet pays without seeing it. The food cost percentage guide covers the outlet side of the calculation.

Licensing and regulatory notes

This is general information, not legal advice; licensing depends on what you produce, where, and how much, so confirm with your local authority or a consultant.

In India, each premises needs its own FSSAI license or registration, so the central kitchen and every outlet hold separate ones. Whether the central kitchen needs a state or central license depends on its category and size, including turnover and production capacity. A business operating food premises in more than one state also needs a central license for its head or registered office. If the central kitchen packs product that could be considered pre-packaged food, labelling rules under the FSSAI Food Safety and Standards (Labelling and Display) Regulations may apply too. The FoSCoS portal has an eligibility check that takes you through the categories.

In the US, a central kitchen supplying only your own restaurants is usually permitted and inspected by the state or local health department under the state's adopted Food Code. Selling to other businesses (wholesale) can bring in state agriculture department licensing and FDA food facility registration, which have different rules. Food trucks and carts usually must operate from an approved commissary, and the local health department decides what qualifies. In Canada, central kitchens are generally regulated provincially or municipally, and selling across provincial lines can bring in federal licensing under the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations.

Running it day to day

The commissary's daily rhythm ends up being a loop: orders in by cutoff, production plan by evening, batches produced and recorded overnight, vans loaded and logged at dawn, outlets receive and sign, issues logged by afternoon, credits issued, and tomorrow's orders arrive. Most failures happen when one of those steps is skipped because everyone is busy. A short dashboard showing which outlets have ordered, which batches are recorded, which deliveries have been signed and which issues are open makes it obvious where the loop broke.