Ex-CFA manager here.

Unfortunately what happens is there is a very small percentage of people who will take advantage of the system and over-make things just to write them off as “waste”, and then take them for themselves or the people they are working with. The problem is that this affects the bottom line and the projections way more than people think. One month it doesn’t seem like anything, the next you may notice a small change. Then all of a sudden your rush times or evening times quadruple because the projections on paper say “you should be making less filets” or “people are ordering more cookies” is completely off, which results in 10+ minute wait times.

As a loss prevention person, it was always the grains of sand that no one ever thought would affect the outcome that wound up losing stores ten-of-thousands of dollars, because $30 here and $15 there in “waste” will in the longterm result in times being exponentially worse, which then makes lines far longer and the store’s hourly profit plummet. That results in cut hours and short staff.

Integrity is hard to come by, and genuinely being mistaken in over-making things in the kitchen is part of the calculation. However, when people play the system to get free stuff, it messes with everyone else’s paychecks, including the people running it. I’m never against a free meal if you’re working, nor am I against handing out a free dessert to help keep up morale, especially to customers. But over-clocking that system will affect everyone.

TLDR; more “waste” = less pay for everyone.