Shops that skip this end up with a stock take that shows a large unexplained loss and no way to tell spoilage from theft from mis-keyed sales. Those three need completely different responses, so they need to be separated at the point they happen.
The number worth watching is wastage as a share of purchases per category. A produce line running at a few percent is normal; the same line at fifteen percent is either an ordering problem or a storage problem, and the report tells you which product to look at.
One thing to confirm with us rather than assume: **whether expiry-date tracking and near-expiry alerts fit your setup**. Wastage recording and stock counts are straightforward; date-based alerting depends on how your products are set up, so ask before you plan a process around it.