.png)
Bakeries and restaurants are often seen as two different worlds—on one hand, the bakery with its nighttime production; on the other, the kitchen with its lunch service. Yet from a planning perspective, both face the same problem every day: they produce perishable goods before demand is known. And because both industries approach this problem from different angles, they can learn a surprising amount from each other.
What the Restaurant Industry Can Learn from Bakeries
Think in terms of specific items. Bakeries have always planned by item: 80 croissants, 45 braided loaves, 30 whole-grain loaves. This level of detail is missing in many kitchens, where planning is done in terms of “total meals”—yet it’s the distribution across components and menu lines that determines whether there will be surpluses or shortages. Those who plan by item, just like a bakery, can see their errors on a per-item basis—and can correct them.
Track returns as a key metric. The return rate is an established performance metric in the bakery—recorded daily and analyzed by item. The equivalent in the kitchen, production surplus, is rarely measured systematically. The bakery’s discipline of daily measurement is directly applicable—and forms the foundation of any improvement.
The harsh end of the season. Bakeries know this: After January 6, no more Three Kings’ Cakes are baked—period. This discipline in ending promotions and seasonal menus is lacking in some kitchens—where dishes continue to be served because there are still ingredients left, not because there’s demand.
What Bakeries Can Learn from the Restaurant Industry
Produce in waves. The kitchen operates closer to the service area: producing additional items during lunch is part of the daily routine. Bakeries that bake parts of their assortment in a second wave—snacks in the late morning, bread at noon—reduce the risk associated with morning stock and sell fresher products. The trend toward “snackification” reinforces this proximity anyway.
Think in terms of customer traffic. Restaurant owners start by asking: How many customers will come? Bakeries often think in terms of the product. Focusing on customer traffic sharpens your understanding of location-specific factors—commuter traffic, holidays, events—that all drive sales of every item at the same time.
Recipes as a Planning Tool. The kitchen naturally calculates ingredient requirements based on dishes. Bakeries that translate their sales forecasts into raw material requirements using recipes can turn their sales forecasts directly into purchasing plans.
Our Shared Future: Data-Driven Planning
The key point is this: both industries are currently converging on the same solution. In both cases, demand is driven by the same factors—day of the week, weather, vacations, holidays, and location—and it is precisely these patterns that an AI forecast learns from sales data. That is why GoNina works across industries with bakeries and restaurants, providing daily forecasts by item or ingredient and by location, seven days in advance.
The results are similarly consistent: up to 52% less waste, both in bakeries and in restaurants. Different kitchens, same pattern.
Frequently Asked Questions
We are a bakery with a café—which approach applies to us?
Both: The in-store product assortment follows the bakery approach on a per-item basis, while the café and snack business follows the foodservice approach based on foot traffic and peak periods. A forecast that accounts for both on a per-item basis bridges the two worlds.
Are the forecasting models the same for both industries?
The principle is the same, but the learned patterns are not: Each model learns from its own business’s data—a cafeteria gets cafeteria patterns, a bakery gets bakery patterns.
Conclusion
Bakeries and restaurants solve the same planning problem using different traditions—item-by-item precision here, frequency- and wave-based thinking there. Those who adopt the strengths of the other industry and support both with data-driven forecasts plan more effectively than either tradition does on its own.
Details by industry: the guide for bakeries and the guide for the restaurant industry.
