This month we look at: avocado prices, a refresher on inventory counts, tips from an accountant on patio season, inflation and national restaurant sales trends from June.

We're halfway through July, and halfway through the year (if you can believe it!). We celebrated America's 250th birthday, and I, personally, have never watched so much soccer (er... football) in my whole life as I have in the last month. And even with the US and our North American neighbors out of the competition, it's still been an incredible experience!

The World Cup wraps up this Sunday, July 19th, but bars and restaurants across the country have been feeling the boost for a while! Square data from the tournament's opening stretch showed bars and breweries up 8% nationally, QSRs up 31%, and Full Service up 3.5%. Here's a snapshot of some more of their findings:

• Food orders overall were up 13.6%, with burgers (11.6%) a fan favorite. Ranch dressing also emerged as a standout, up 11.5%
• Non-alcoholic and mocktail options rose 11.8%, outpacing the lift beer saw at 8.8%
• Soda was another popular beverage option, rising by 11.1%

On a less fun industry note: the cyclosporiasis outbreak spreading nationwide is worth a look if you handle fresh produce. Lettuce and salad greens, potentially coming from Taylor Farms, are the leading suspect, though nothing's been confirmed. 

Taco Bell has made changes to its menu in response, but we’re curious what, if anything, you’re doing in your own restaurants. Whether that’s triple-washing veggies, adjusting your sourcing, or even marketing a new “Carnivore Diet” menu, we’d love to hear what’s working for you.

We’re hoping to gather and share some of the best practices and creative ideas operators across the industry are trying so we can all learn from one another. Shoot me an email at rachel@marginedge.com and let me know!

Know someone who would like to join our 114,359 subscribers? Forward to a friend or send them this link.

Wishing you all full dining rooms (and patios!) and a safe, profitable end to July!

- Rachel & the MarginEdge team

P.S. If you took our very, very accurate Restaurant Personality Type quiz, your July mantras are here!

MONTHLY SALES METRICS & UPDATE

The trailing 4-week (28-day) average of year-over-year (YOY) sales for Fast Casual came in at +3.21% and Full Service at +2.71% at the end of June compared to 2025 sales.

Food costs averaged 30% of sales last month, a slight increase from May.

Dig into the full report.

ITEM TO WATCH

Avocados

If your guac has felt a little more expensive to make lately, you're not imagining it.

The current fresh avocado median price per pound across MarginEdge clients is $3.00, which is up +89% from six months ago, and +22% from 12 months ago.

The spike traces back to the tail end of the Mexican avocado season, which supplies the vast majority of the U.S. market. In late May, two major distributors, Mission Produce and Westfalia Fruit, both declared force majeure on Mexican avocado orders as growers slowed harvesting in anticipation of stronger late-season pricing, causing field prices to spike as packers competed for tighter supply. Suppliers have been redirecting volume from Peru, Colombia, and California to fill the gap, but that takes time to fully offset a Mexico-sized hole in the market.

While that's the official reason, we have a feeling Mexico's devastating loss in the World Cup was painful for the avocados too. Who could blame them?

The good news: this kind of seasonal transition squeeze tends to ease once the next growing region ramps up. If avocados are a menu staple for you, now's a good time to double-check portioning and keep an eye on invoice prices so a temporary spike doesn't quietly become a permanent hit to your margins.

Roots Natural Kitchen | Multiple locations

ASK [me] ANYTHING

What's the tl;dr on inventory counts?

No one loves taking inventory counts (maybe unless you're like the Marie Kondo of the restaurant world). It's the task everyone loves to put off, but it's also one of the few numbers in your restaurant that tells you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not. Sales tell you what you rang up. Inventory tells you what actually happened to your product.

Here's why it matters more in the summer: higher volume means more room for small errors to compound, and warmer weather means faster spoilage on top of it. A count that's off by a little in January can be off by a lot come July if nobody's watching closely.

A few fundamentals to keep your counts honest:

🗓️ Count on a consistent schedule. Weekly counts for high-turnover or high-cost items (proteins, produce, dairy) and a full count monthly at minimum. The less time between counts, the easier it is to spot where something went wrong. If you want an accurate P&L, you don't need to channel your inner Marie. You just need to be doing a full count at the end of your accounting period, every time. This gives you a baseline for the start of the next period and allows you to compare accurately to the start of the current one.

📋 Standardize how you count. Same order, same person or team when possible, same time of day (ideally before a delivery or prep shift muddies the numbers). Consistency is what makes period-over-period comparisons actually mean something. If you can't use the same person each time, or you operate multiple locations and want to compare across stores accurately, make sure your inventory training is consistent and that everyone on your team is familiar with and has access to your inventory management tool if you use one.

🧊 Don't skip the walk-in corners. Shrinkage and spoilage love to hide in the back of the walk-in, behind the bar and in that prep low boy nobody double-checks. Especially at 2 AM on a Sunday after a long shift. Set a habit of physically counting, not eyeballing. Bonus points if you schedule inventories during a time of day when your team isn't exhausted, in the weeds or otherwise motivated to get home to binge-watch the final season of The Bear.

📊 Compare theoretical to actual. Your recipes and sales should tell you what you should have used. Your count tells you what you actually have left. The gap between those two numbers is where waste, over-portioning, theft or invoice errors show up. Variance won't tell you why you're losing inventory, but it at least shows you where you're losing it so you can start digging. Using a waste log can also help to track waste so you know if the grill was running a little hot and those five lost ribeyes got torched vs. took a field trip home with your closer to watch The Bear. (This is a purely hypothetical example. We love closers and know it's always the openers you should really be keeping an eye on. 👀)

✨ Bonus: what counts as a "big" variance?

Most operators should start asking questions at a 2-3% variance on any given item. Below that, you're usually looking at normal measurement noise. Above that, consistently, it's worth digging into portioning, receiving practices or whether a recipe needs a hard look.