Food costing in a restaurant: how to cost a dish from its recipe card
Food cost compares what the ingredients in one portion cost with the price the portion sells for before tax. Build it from a recipe card rather than a hunch. Below you will find the method, a full worked example and the way trim yield changes the answer.
The method in brief
- Write down each ingredient with the net weight that actually reaches the plate.
- Turn the purchase price into a price per unit, then multiply it by the quantity on the recipe card.
- Allow for technical loss, meaning whatever is lost to cleaning, trimming and cooking.
- Total every line. That sum is the production cost of one portion.
- Divide the production cost by the selling price before tax: food cost % = cost ÷ net price × 100.
A full recipe card: spaghetti carbonara, one portion
Recipe card showing weights, purchase prices and the cost on the plate (illustrative)
| Ingredient | Net weight | Purchase price | Plated cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spaghetti | 120 g | €2.50/kg | €0.30 |
| Guanciale | 60 g | €15.00/kg | €0.90 |
| Egg yolks (2) | 40 g | €0.35 each | €0.70 |
| Pecorino | 30 g | €20.00/kg | €0.60 |
| Pepper, salt, oil | — | — | €0.10 |
| Total raw materials | 250 g | — | €2.60 |
| Final cost (with 5% technical loss added) | — | — | €2.73 |
Reading the example
The dish is priced on the menu at €13.75, tax included. With an illustrative 10% tax rate (rates differ by country), the net price is €13.75 ÷ 1.10 = €12.50. All figures are illustrative, so use your own invoices.
Food cost = €2.73 ÷ €12.50 = 21.8%. In other words, €2.73 out of each €12.50 of net sales is spent on ingredients.
Whether 21.8% works for you depends on the margin you need. If it ended up far above your target, you would have three levers: a higher price, a smaller portion or a different supplier. In this dish, guanciale and pecorino account for about 58% of the ingredient cost.
Yield counts for more than the invoice price
Take beef fillet bought at €30.00 per kilo. Once trimmed, 780 g of each kilo can be served, which is a yield of 78%.
The meat that reaches the plate therefore costs not €30.00 but €30.00 ÷ 0.78 = €38.46 per kilo. A recipe card that skips yield understates the cost of the meat by about 22%.
A practical rule: put the yield you measured in your own kitchen on the card, and ignore the figure printed in a textbook.
Table: what shapes food cost, by menu category
What shapes food cost across the sections of a restaurant menu
| Category | Check first | What decides the result |
|---|---|---|
| Alcoholic drinks | Measure per serve | How much is poured, and how consistently |
| Coffee and hot drinks | Milk and cup sizes | Milk and cups matter more than the beans |
| Pasta and pizza | Quantities per batch | Portions that are weighed, not guessed |
| Meat and fish dishes | Yield measured in your kitchen | Yield after trimming and after cooking |
| Soups and sides | Portion sizes | They pull the menu average down |
| House desserts | Preparation time | Labour, which nearly everyone leaves out |
Rules to check where you operate
- The recipe card is the internal record that your ingredient list, and so your allergen information for guests, comes from.
- Check which allergens you must disclose to guests for food sold unpackaged, and how that disclosure has to appear on menus.
- Check how tax must be shown on menu prices, such as whether the displayed price has to include it, and confirm the detail with an adviser.
- Tax rates on restaurant sales differ from one country to another, so always measure food cost against the price before tax.
- Whenever a recipe change alters the allergens, update the menu that guests see straight away.
Common mistakes
- Measuring food cost against the tax-inclusive price, which makes the percentage look about 9% lower than it really is with a 10% rate.
- Taking the gross weight from the supplier invoice instead of the net weight served.
- Leaving out garnish, sauce and packaging, three small lines that add up fast.
- Refreshing recipe cards once a year even though purchase prices can move every few weeks.
- Watching only the percentage and ignoring how many euros each sold portion leaves behind.
How 4restaurants.net helps
- Each dish gets a recipe card listing the quantity of every ingredient per batch, and the food cost per portion is calculated from it.
- The usable yield of an ingredient is entered once, so trimming loss flows into every recipe that uses that ingredient.
- The read-only QR menu displays dishes, allergens and sold-out items drawn from the same application, and it never shows costs.
- You can see the food cost per portion on every recipe card, and the food-cost report covers whichever period you pick.