Restaurant food cost calculator
Cost a recipe from purchased ingredients and usable yield. Calculate food cost per portion, food cost percentage and a price at your chosen target.
Free to use without signup. Your financial inputs stay in the browser.
What you will enter
- Sellable portions per batch (portions): Use actual usable portions from this recipe. Do not count portions you cannot sell.
- Menu price before tax ($ / portion): Price for one portion, before sales tax and tips.
- Target food cost percentage (%): Your chosen target, not an industry recommendation. The tool does not prescribe a percentage.
The formula
Ingredient cost = purchase cost × usable quantity in batch ÷ (purchase quantity × usable yield). Portion food cost = total batch food cost ÷ sellable portions. Price at target = portion food cost ÷ target food cost ratio.
A worked example
Fictional example: $40 of chicken purchased as 10 lb at 80% usable yield costs $20 for 4 usable lb. Adding $10 of ready-to-use sauce makes a $30 batch. Ten sellable portions cost $3 each: 20% food cost at a $15 menu price, or a $10 price at a chosen 30% target.
How to use the result
Keep each ingredient in one unit
If the purchase quantity is in pounds, enter the quantity used in pounds too. Convert before entering: for example, 8 oz is 0.5 lb. The tool does not infer density or convert between mass and volume.
Apply yield once
Yield is the usable share of what you purchased. For a ready-to-use ingredient, enter 100%. Do not reduce the purchase quantity and apply the same trimming loss again.
Price with the whole operation in mind
The target price is arithmetic, not a recommendation. Labor, packaging, fees, overhead, competing offers and what guests value still affect a workable menu price.
Questions owners ask
Does menu price minus food cost equal profit?
No. That amount still needs to cover labor, packaging, payment and delivery fees, rent and other overhead. The result is deliberately labeled as price less food cost.
Is this actual food cost percentage?
This is theoretical recipe food cost at the entered purchase costs and yields. Actual food cost uses inventory and purchasing records and can differ because of waste, portions, price changes and sales mix.
Keep working on the decision
Sources and scope
Planning estimates based on your inputs. Check the assumptions against your actual quotes, recipes and operating records.