True Food Kitchen runs 2,200 active recipes to power a menu of fewer than 100 items. Stephan Manning, Director of Restaurant Systems and Optimization, joins Behind the Numbers to explain how a 46-location scratch kitchen keeps 1,200 purchase items, 16,000 vendor items, and close to 2,000 invoices a week clean and moving through Restaurant365.

Stephan covers the yield-on-yield recipe structure a scratch concept demands, the 7,000 mistakes he carried out of a failed lighthouse implementation and five years on CrunchTime, the naming conventions that keep the database honest, and how an 87 percent yield target turns into a real conversation with a prep cook. He also gets into managing 17 distribution centers across 18 states, soft-launching seasonal menus, what a new CEO means for the brand, using AI to sharpen an email instead of writing it, and why the industry has hit peak chicken tender.

Hosted by Marc Cohen and Rich Sweeney. Find Stephan Manning on LinkedIn and True Food Kitchen, now 46 restaurants across 18 states, at truefoodkitchen.com. Listen and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or watch on YouTube.