Free tools/Food cost calculator
Food cost calculator.
Enter what goes into a dish and what you charge. Get the cost per portion, your food cost percentage, the margin you keep and the price that hits your target.
- Costs from real pack sizes
- Waste and trim included
- Free, no account
- Pack price$/UsedWaste%Cost$18.00
- Pack price$/UsedWaste%Cost$6.67
- Pack price$/UsedWaste%Cost$1.80
- Pack price$/UsedWaste%Cost$0.92
- Pack price$/UsedWaste%Cost$0.49
- Pack price$/UsedWaste%Cost$1.00
- Pack price$/UsedWaste%Cost$4.66
Recipe total$33.54
Other costs and scenarios
The three numbers that matter.
Costing a plate is not complicated; it is just tedious to do by hand for every recipe. These are the three calculations this tool runs for you each time you change a field.
- Cost per portion
Total ingredient cost ÷ portions produced
What one plate costs you in raw ingredients, with waste already added back in.
- Food cost percentage
Cost per portion ÷ menu price × 100
The share of the sale price that leaves as raw product. Lower is better, within reason.
- Target menu price
Cost per portion ÷ target food cost %
What you would need to charge to land on the food cost you are aiming for.
How to cost a recipe properly.
Five minutes of setup per dish, and the number stays useful for a year.
01Start from the pack, not the gram
You do not buy 150 g of cheese, you buy a 1 kg block for a certain price. Enter the pack price and the pack size, then enter how much of it the recipe uses. The calculator converts between kilos, grams, litres, millilitres and units so you never do that arithmetic yourself.
02Add your waste before you trust the number
Peeling potatoes, trimming a joint, cooking-loss on a braise: the quantity that reaches the plate is not the quantity you bought. Enter the loss as a percentage and the tool grosses the purchase quantity up, which is what your invoices will show at the end of the month.
- Root vegetables and potatoes: typically 15–25% loss
- Leafy salad and herbs: 10–20%
- Whole fish and bone-in meat: 30–50% depending on the cut
03Use one price basis and stay on it
In the US, menu prices are quoted before sales tax and food cost is calculated on that pre-tax price, so leave the tax field at zero unless you deliberately quote tax-inclusive prices. What matters is consistency: compare a pre-tax cost against a pre-tax price, never one against the other.
04Cost the plate, not just the protein
Oil, butter, seasoning, the sauce, the garnish and the packaging for takeout all belong in the calculation. Individually they look negligible; across a service they are the difference between a 28% and a 34% food cost. Packaging and other direct costs have their own field so they hit your margin without distorting the food cost ratio.
05Recalculate when purchase prices move
A recipe costed last spring is a historical document. Use the purchase-increase simulation to see what a 5% or 10% rise across your suppliers does to this dish before it quietly eats your margin, and reprice the few dishes that actually need it rather than raising the whole menu.
What food cost percentage should you aim for?
There is no single correct target. What matters is the gap between your ratio and the norm for your format, because that gap is where the money is.
| Format | Typical food cost | What drives it |
|---|---|---|
| Pizzeria | 22–30% | Flour and cheese are cheap per plate; labour and rent are the real constraint. |
| Fast food & takeaway | 28–35% | Volume-driven, with packaging adding one to three points on delivery orders. |
| Café & coffee shop | 18–25% | Drinks carry very low product cost and subsidise the food side. |
| Bakery | 25–33% | Raw materials are cheap, but unsold stock at close is the hidden cost. |
| Casual dining | 28–35% | Menu breadth raises waste risk; the top ten sellers decide the average. |
| Fine dining | 30–38% | Expensive product is deliberate; margin is recovered on price and covers. |
| Sushi & raw fish | 35–45% | High product cost and short shelf life, offset by low garnish and sauce cost. |
| Bar & cocktails | 18–24% | Spirits pour well under 20%; wine by the glass is what moves the average. |
These are operating ranges, not rules. A 40% food cost on a dish that sells out every night beats a 22% dish nobody orders; always read the percentage next to the cash margin and the number of covers.
Four mistakes that make the number wrong.
Every one of these makes your food cost look better on paper than it is in the bank.
Costing the bought quantity instead of the net quantity
If a recipe uses 150 g of trimmed beef but you lose 20% in trimming, you bought 188 g. Cost the 188 g. Skipping this understates food cost on exactly the dishes where it matters most.
Mixing tax-inclusive and tax-exclusive figures
Supplier invoices and menu prices are not always on the same basis. Comparing a pre-tax cost against a tax-inclusive price flatters your ratio by several points and hides a dish that is genuinely underpriced.
Forgetting packaging on delivery and takeaway
A box, a lid, a bag and a set of cutlery is real money on every order. It does not belong in the food cost ratio, but it absolutely comes out of your margin, so it needs to be somewhere in the calculation.
Treating food cost as the whole picture
Food cost says nothing about labour, rent, energy or platform commission. A dish can be at 25% and still lose money once a marketplace takes 30% of the ticket. Read the ratio and the cash margin per plate together.
Questions
What is a good food cost percentage for a restaurant?
Most full-service restaurants operate between 28% and 35%, pizzerias sit lower at 22–30%, and sushi or raw-fish concepts often run 35–45%. The right target depends on your format, your rent and your volume. Rather than chasing an industry average, set a target you can defend for your own business and use it consistently across the menu.
How do you calculate food cost per portion?
Add up what every ingredient in the recipe costs, including the quantity lost to trim, peeling and cooking, then divide that total by the number of portions the recipe produces. This calculator does it for you: enter the pack price and pack size for each ingredient, the quantity the recipe uses and your waste percentage.
What is the difference between food cost percentage and gross margin?
They are two views of the same sale. Food cost percentage is the share of the menu price that goes to raw product; gross margin is the cash you keep after that product cost. A dish at 30% food cost has a 70% gross margin before labour, rent and any other running cost.
Should food cost be calculated on the price with or without tax?
Use the same basis on both sides. In the US, menu prices are normally quoted before sales tax and costing is done on that pre-tax price. If you quote tax-inclusive prices, set the tax rate in the calculator so the ratio is measured against the pre-tax value of the sale.
How do I account for waste and trim loss?
Enter the loss as a percentage next to each ingredient. The calculator grosses the purchase quantity up so you pay for what you actually buy rather than what reaches the plate. Root vegetables typically lose 15–25%, leafy produce 10–20%, and bone-in meat or whole fish 30–50%.
How often should I recost my recipes?
Review the dishes that carry your volume every quarter, and immediately whenever a supplier price moves sharply. Use the purchase-increase simulation to see which dishes break first, then reprice only those instead of raising the entire menu.
Is this food cost calculator free?
Yes. It is completely free, there is no account, no email and no trial. It runs entirely in your browser and QwikEat never sees your recipes or your supplier prices.
Are my recipes saved?
They are stored locally in your own browser, so they are still there when you come back on the same device. They are not synced to QwikEat and not sent anywhere. Use the export button to keep a copy or move a recipe to another machine.
Know the price. Then charge it.
Once you know what a plate really costs, the next step is getting the right price in front of customers, on your own ordering page, with no commission taken out of the ticket. QwikEat is free to use.