Free tool
Food cost percentage calculator
Enter what a portion costs you and what you sell it for. This gives you the food cost percentage, the gross profit left on the plate, and whether the figure sits where a kitchen like yours would want it.
Cost per portion is ingredients only - no labour, gas, or packaging. If you do not have that figure yet, cost the recipe first.
Food cost percentage
30.0%
Inside the 28-35% band most full-service kitchens target.
Gross profit per portion
₱126.00
What is left after ingredients - before labour, rent, and everything else.
Gross margin
70.0%
The mirror of food cost: the two always add up to 100%.
At 40 portions a week
- Revenue
- ₱7,200.00
- Ingredient cost
- ₱2,160.00
- Gross profit
- ₱5,040.00
A percentage point on a dish you sell forty times a week is worth more than five points on one you sell twice. This is why the volume matters.
The formula, and the part it hides
Food cost percentage is cost per portion divided by menu price, times a hundred. That is the whole of it. The difficulty is never the division - it is trusting the number you divide.
A cost per portion is only honest if it includes every ingredient at the price you actually paid, converted from the unit you buy in to the unit you cook in, with trim waste accounted for. Miss the oil and the aromatics because they feel too small to bother with, and a dish that really runs at 34% will report 29% - and you will price it as though there is room that is not there. If you have not built that figure yet, the food cost calculator does it ingredient by ingredient.
The second thing the percentage hides is volume. Two dishes at 30% are not equally important if one sells forty times a week and the other twice. Fix the percentage on your best sellers first - that is where a single point is worth real money.
And once you know the percentage you want rather than the one you have, the calculation runs the other way: work the price back from a target percentage instead of testing prices one at a time.
Common questions
What is the food cost percentage formula?
Food cost percentage = (cost per portion ÷ menu price) × 100. A plate that costs 54 in ingredients and sells for 180 runs at 54 ÷ 180 × 100 = 30%. The same formula works across a whole period if you use total ingredient cost and total food sales instead of a single dish.
What is a good food cost percentage?
Most full-service kitchens target 28-35%. Quick service often runs lower because portions are tightly controlled, and steak or seafood restaurants routinely run above 40% because the protein dominates the plate. The band matters less than whether the gross profit left over covers your labour and rent.
How do I calculate food cost percentage for the whole restaurant?
Take beginning inventory, add purchases, subtract ending inventory - that is the food actually used in the period. Divide it by food sales for the same period and multiply by 100. Doing it per dish tells you which items to fix; doing it per period tells you whether waste and theft are eating the difference.
Why is my actual food cost higher than the calculated one?
Because the calculation assumes every gram you buy reaches a paying customer. Waste, over-portioning, staff meals, comps, and spoilage all sit in the gap between theoretical and actual food cost. A gap of a point or two is normal; five or more usually means portioning is not controlled.
Does food cost percentage include labour?
No. Food cost is ingredients only. Adding labour gives you prime cost, a separate figure most operators keep under 60-65% of sales. Mixing the two makes a healthy kitchen look broken.
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