We are enormously pleased to announce Controliza's recent collaboration agreement with the Basque Culinary Center, a strategic agreement that will allow us to bring our advanced technological solutions to the heart of gastronomic education, preparing the next generation of industry leaders with cutting-edge restaurant management tools.
The alliance between the Basque Culinary Center (BCC) and Controliza is part of a joint effort to integrate digitization and technological innovation into cutting-edge gastronomic education. El BCC, reconocido internacionalmente como un referente en la educación culinaria, ha dado un paso decisivo al incluir las soluciones tecnológicas de Controliza en su programa académico, permitiendo que los estudiantes accedan a las herramientas más avanzadas del mercado para la gestión integral de restaurantes.
Controliza, SaaS software specialized in business intelligence for the HORECA sector, offers a complete platform covering everything from demand prediction and inventory management to purchasing optimization and real-time operational data analysis. Estas capacidades no solo facilitan la toma de decisiones informadas, sino que también potencian la rentabilidad y sostenibilidad de los negocios de restauración.
La colaboración tiene como objetivo no solo enriquecer el aprendizaje de los futuros profesionales, sino también prepararlos para liderar la transformación digital del sector. Controliza ha desarrollado prácticas diseñadas específicamente para los estudiantes del BCC, donde se simulan escenarios reales de gestión, permitiendo a los alumnos aplicar tecnologías avanzadas de predicción y análisis en situaciones cotidianas de un entorno de restauración. Este enfoque práctico garantiza que los estudiantes no solo comprendan las teorías detrás de la digitalización, sino que también adquieran la experiencia necesaria para implementar estas soluciones en la vida real.
Al incorporar el software de Controliza, el BCC asegura que sus estudiantes están a la vanguardia de las últimas tendencias tecnológicas, dándoles una ventaja competitiva en el mercado laboral. Con herramientas como el módulo predictivo y el sistema de gestión de compras inteligente, los alumnos aprenderán a optimizar procesos clave como la planificación de compras, la reducción de desperdicios y la mejora de la eficiencia operativa, aspectos críticos para el éxito en un sector tan dinámico como el de la gastronomía.
How this partnership connects culinary education with the real challenges of HORECA management
In hospitality, the biggest issue is not usually a lack of effort, but a lack of operational visibility. Many businesses make purchasing, production, or supply decisions using scattered information, disconnected spreadsheets, and manual processes that make it very difficult to control food cost accurately. On top of that, there are daily issues such as unrecorded waste, outdated recipe costing, delivery notes that are not properly validated, stockouts, or discrepancies between what is purchased, what enters the warehouse, what is produced in the kitchen, and what is ultimately sold. In an environment as demanding as HORECA chains, where every margin point matters, this lack of traceability and control ends up directly affecting profitability. That is why the value of this collaboration goes far beyond bringing technology into the classroom: it allows students to get closer to the operational reality they will encounter in restaurant groups, hotels, and contract catering, teaching them how to interpret data and act on it to improve results.
From this perspective, Controliza brings a very specific competitive advantage: it does not simply digitize tasks, it connects areas that have traditionally operated in isolation. Purchase planning no longer depends solely on intuition when it is supported by Prediction, which helps anticipate demand and fine-tune orders more effectively. Supply management becomes more robust when forecast data is linked to purchasing, inventory, and kitchen operations within a single platform, avoiding duplication and reducing execution errors. This is especially relevant in training future professionals, because it helps them understand that profitability is not improved through isolated actions, but through an integrated view of the entire operation. When a student works with a system that connects recipe costing, theoretical consumption, actual stock, purchase prices, and production, they gain a practical understanding of how a food cost variance is generated, why hidden waste appears, or what impact poor delivery note reception has on the final margin. This kind of learning, applied to real or simulated cases, prepares far more well-rounded profiles aligned with the sector’s current needs.
In addition, this partnership focuses on a critical issue for the future of professional foodservice: training leaders who can manage with sound judgment, speed, and traceability. In businesses with multiple operating units, it is not enough to know how to cook well or design an attractive food concept; it is also essential to master KPIs, standardize processes, and detect inefficiencies before they turn into structural losses. This is where AI-powered operational intelligence makes the difference. Controliza allows you to work from shared data across departments, making it easier to identify improvement opportunities in real time and act on specific business levers. The result is a food cost reduction of between 3% and 5%, a drop in waste of more than 20%, and a positive return on investment within a few months—metrics that clearly reflect the impact of more precise management. Bringing this logic into the academic environment has strategic value: students do not just learn how to use a tool, they learn to think like operations, purchasing, or unit management leaders, with a mindset focused on efficiency, control, and decision-making based on real data.
Ultimately, the collaboration between Basque Culinary Center and Controliza reinforces an idea that is becoming increasingly clear across the sector: gastronomic excellence and operational excellence can no longer be separated. The ability to maintain quality, protect margins, and scale a complex operation depends on having connected processes, reliable data, and tools capable of turning information into action. For students, this means access to training that is much closer to the professional environment they will encounter when entering the market. For the sector, it means moving toward a model where digitalization is not an add-on, but a requirement for competing more effectively. And for HORECA chains, it represents the opportunity to professionalize the management of purchasing, inventory, production, and traceability with a platform specifically designed to solve the problems that most affect day-to-day operations: cost variances, lack of control over delivery notes, difficulties keeping recipe costing up to date, losses due to waste, and a lack of cross-functional visibility. This is where Controliza turns operational complexity into a real competitive advantage, and where this partnership finds its full meaning.
This partnership between academic research and real-world operations continues to drive innovation in how HORECA chains manage their daily challenges.
From classroom theory to operational control in real HORECA environments
What makes this alliance especially relevant is that it connects culinary talent with the operational discipline the industry now demands. Knowing how to create an excellent menu is no longer enough if you cannot protect margin, control waste, and maintain traceability across daily service. In many HORECA operations, the real problem appears after the dish is designed: recipe costing is updated too late, delivery notes are checked manually, stock deviations go unnoticed, and food cost is reviewed only when the month is already closed. That gap between culinary decision-making and operational visibility is exactly where digital training becomes strategic.
By working with a platform built for multi-unit HORECA groups, students can understand how decisions made in purchasing, production, and service impact profitability in real time. With tools like Forecasting, they can learn how demand planning affects purchasing accuracy and stock levels before overordering turns into waste. With connected purchasing and inventory workflows, they can see how a single shared data model improves control over supplier orders, delivery notes, recipe costing, and traceability. Instead of learning each process in isolation, they are exposed to the operational logic that links kitchen execution with financial performance.
This has practical implications far beyond the classroom. Future chefs, restaurant managers, and operations leaders will enter the market with a much clearer understanding of how to prevent margin leakage before it becomes structural. They will be better prepared to identify why theoretical food cost does not match actual consumption, how poor inventory discipline increases waste, or how missing traceability records create compliance risk. Just as importantly, they will learn to work with live operational data rather than assumptions, which is increasingly essential in chains where standardization, speed, and control must coexist.
For the sector, this means more than academic innovation. It means developing professionals who already speak the language of operational intelligence and can contribute from day one to more efficient, profitable, and resilient businesses. That is where Controliza adds tangible value: by translating complex restaurant operations into connected, actionable data that helps reduce food cost by 3–5%, cut waste by more than 20%, and achieve positive ROI in 3 to 6 months. Bringing that mindset into hospitality education helps close one of the industry's biggest gaps: the distance between culinary excellence and operational excellence.
