Nightly pull list for thawing

Many kitchens keep a product in two forms, for example frozen hot dogs and thawed hot dogs. Each night at close, someone pulls frozen stock to thaw for the next day. Rinvy can tell them how much to pull, and it keeps the pull in your stock numbers.

An overnight pull into the walk-in is also the safe way to thaw. The CDC's food poisoning prevention advice says to thaw frozen food in the refrigerator, in cold water or in the microwave, and never on the counter. The FDA Food Code also names thawing under refrigeration as one of the ways a restaurant may thaw food.

What you need

• One recipe turns the frozen product into the thawed product, with only that one ingredient. For example, "Thaw Hot Dogs": 1 box of Frozen Hot Dogs makes 50 Thawed Hot Dogs. See create a recipe.
• On that recipe, turn on Pull nightly. Leave it off for a prep you make on a prep day, not every night. Then the recipe stays on your regular prep list.
• The switch shows only on a recipe with that shape: one ingredient and an output product. Only one recipe per output product can pull nightly. When you turn the switch on for a second recipe, Rinvy moves it off the first.
• Both products must be active and counted. A product that Rinvy tracks from sales, or that you track as OK/LOW/OUT, can't take part.
• We recommend that you also link the two products: on the thawed product, set the frozen product as its source. Then the order list counts thawed stock when it orders frozen stock.
• For the best amounts, keep a forecast or a sales plan for the next few days. Without one, Rinvy uses the par of the thawed product.

The nightly pull list

Rinvy makes a prep list for each night, called Pulls. It shows on the Home page under What's next, like any prep list that is due.

For each product, the list says how many batches to pull:

• The target. If a forecast or a sales plan covers tomorrow, the target is what tomorrow's sales will use. If not, the target is the par of the thawed product.
• What is left. After the night's count, this is the counted thawed stock. Before the count, it is an estimate.
• The pull. The target minus what is left, rounded up to whole batches. If the freezer holds less than that, the list says so and links to the order list.

1. Take the night's count as usual. Count before you pull.

2. When you finish the count, the last screen shows tonight's pulls. Pull that many boxes from the freezer.

3. Tap Mark pulled. Rinvy moves the stock from the frozen product to the thawed product. You can also check a pull off on the Prep page.

Once a recipe pulls nightly, the regular prep list generator leaves it out, so nobody is asked to thaw the same product twice. Both product forms name the pull. Frozen Hot Dogs says it is pulled nightly into Thawed Hot Dogs by the "Thaw Hot Dogs" recipe, and you turn the pull off on the recipe.

How many boxes does Rinvy ask for?

Rinvy asks for enough whole boxes to bring tomorrow's thawed stock up to the target. For "Thaw Hot Dogs", where 1 box of Frozen Hot Dogs makes 50 Thawed Hot Dogs:

The row reads "Pull 4 boxes" with the reason "Forecast 368 for Fri, Sep 25 · 188 left". A sales plan shows "Plan" in place of "Forecast". If the freezer holds only 3 boxes, Rinvy asks for 3, adds "only 3 boxes of Frozen Hot Dogs on hand", and shows an Order more button that opens the order list.

Before the count, the leftover is an estimate: the current balance minus tonight's expected use, from the forecast or from one day of burn rate. The row then reads, for example, "Par 120 · about 263 left (estimate, count to update)". Count first, and the estimate turns into a counted number.

When is there no pull list?

Rinvy makes no list on a night you are closed, or on the night before a day you are closed. A kitchen closed on Sunday and Monday gets no list on Saturday, Sunday or Monday night. A product with neither a forecast for tomorrow nor a par is left off the list.

Rinvy creates tonight's list when the business day starts and updates it every hour. An update leaves alone a row that someone checked off or changed by hand.

A pull that nobody logged

When you finish a count, Rinvy compares the frozen count with what it expected. If the frozen stock is lower and nothing explains it, Rinvy asks whether it was a pull. It shows how much, and what the thawed count says about it. Check the amount and tap Log and continue, or tap Skip.

The sheet is titled Log the pulls from these counts? Each pull has its own switch, on by default, and a Batches field you can change. A drop smaller than half a batch counts as count noise, so Rinvy doesn't ask about it. Rinvy also skips a frozen product that another recipe uses, because its drop could come from either recipe.

Rinvy logs the pull between the two counts, so neither count changes. The health review then stops reporting "unlogged waste" on the frozen product and "missing delivery" on the thawed product for that pull.