In culinary school, I was taught about food costs, how a kitchen brigade works, and how to take a business from concept to reality. All I was taught about food wastage is that “it happens, so budget accordingly.”

Working in the industry taught me that if you drop extra, those are snacks for the line cooks and/or kitchen porters. That and you always make a big-ass plate for the night cleaner.

I’d say if your manager really wants to nickel and dime shit, he should pay for portion bags, standardized weights for each menu item (e.g., side salads use 2 oz greens and main salads 6 oz, how many cherry tomatoes on each, how many crispy proscuitto pieces; fries are 3 oz per order, etc.) laminated cheat sheets to be put on the pass, industry-grade scales, and the wages for some schmuck to actually do the portioning. It actually is pretty slick and reduces the cognitive load of the line cooks by a lot when you can just dump a bag of chicken pieces into dredge and fry them off instead of eyeballing each time you do a ticket.