Published
Food cost percentage tells you how much of each sale goes to ingredients. Divide what a dish costs to make by what you charge for it.
The formula
Food cost % = cost to make one plate ÷ menu price × 100
A worked example
A smash burger costs $4.62 to make: bun, beef, cheese, sauce and toppings. It sells for $14.50.
$4.62 ÷ $14.50 = 31.9% food cost. You keep $9.88 a plate before packaging, labour and rent. Take off $0.34 of packaging and it is $9.54.
Cost every ingredient at its real price
Use the pack price and the pack size, not a guess. Then allow for yield, the part you can actually use after trimming.
A 10 kg bag of onions at $14.00 costs $1.40 a kilogram on the label. If 15% goes to skins and ends, you only get 8.5 kg you can use, so each usable kilogram costs $1.65. Re-cost the dish when a supplier changes a price.
What to do with the number
- Pick a target for each kind of dish.
- Check every dish against it.
- Fix a dish that runs high: change the price, the portion or the recipe.
Our free food cost calculator does the sum for one dish, yield included.