Almost every restaurant and food service operator in the country shares a similar monthly routine—the completion of a product inventory and the subsequent generation of a food cost percentage.  This process not only enables the creation of a restaurant profit and loss statement that illustrates the financial health of the business, but can also uncover emerging operational performance issues.  Unfortunately, not as common among restaurant operators is the routine generation of a theoretical food cost that can supplement an actual food cost percentage by providing a food cost target, or baseline.  This article will examine the practice and benefits of routinely generating an ideal food cost as part of a holistic approach to food cost control management.