Food cost in dollars: how to cost a recipe and work out your food cost percentage

At retail prices, the ingredients in a cheeseburger and fries cost 37.4% more in September 2026 than five years earlier, while restaurant prices rose 28.2%. A costed recipe and a monthly food cost figure show in an afternoon which of your plates have fallen behind.

Food cost percentage is what you spent on food in a period divided by your food sales: (beginning inventory + purchases - ending inventory) / food sales. Recipe costing is the same idea for one plate: add up what each ingredient costs at the weight you actually serve, after trim and cooking loss, and divide by the menu price. The National Restaurant Association said on 22 July 2026 that food and labor each take approximately 33 cents of every sales dollar. Last checked: 5 November 2026.

How do you calculate food cost percentage for a month?

Count your food inventory on the first and last day of the month, add up food invoices for the month, and divide by food sales. Our free food cost calculator does the arithmetic; this is the US worksheet behind it.

Worked example. A restaurant with $121,000 of food sales in a month:

Four US-specific rules keep the number clean:

• Use sales before sales tax. Sales tax is collected for the state, not earned. Leave out tips too.
• Keep beverages separate. Liquor, beer and wine have their own cost percentage; mixing them in hides both.
• Adjust for transfers. Fruit the kitchen sends to the bar moves from food cost to beverage cost. Staff meals and comps can be tracked as their own lines so they do not distort the food figure.
• Count the same way every month. Same day, same time, same prices. Our restaurant inventory sheet gives you the count sheet, par levels and the year-end valuation.

How do you cost a recipe?

A recipe card lists every ingredient, the amount on the plate, the price you pay for it and its usable yield. The plate cost is the sum of the lines.

Line cost = amount served x (purchase price per unit / yield %)
Plate cost = sum of line costs + Q factor (small items: salt, oil, garnish)
Food cost % = plate cost / menu price

Worked example: cheeseburger and fries. The prices are illustrations; use your own invoices.

At a $14.00 menu price, food cost is $3.11 / $14.00 = 22.2%. At $13 it is 23.9%; at $15, 20.7%. Beef is 56% of the plate. When the beef price moves, this dish moves with it, which is why the next section matters.

How do you account for yield and trim loss?

Yield is the share of what you buy that ends up on the plate. You pay for the whole tomato, including the core you throw away, so cost the usable part:

Edible portion (EP) cost = as-purchased (AP) cost / yield %
Tomato: $1.30 per lb AP / 0.90 = $1.444 per lb EP

Do not copy yield percentages from a chart; they depend on your knife work, your supplier and your spec. Run a yield test on your top five ingredients by spend:

1. Weigh a full case or a large batch as it arrives (AP weight).
2. Prep it exactly as you do in service: trim, peel, portion.
3. Weigh the usable product (EP weight). Weigh it again after cooking if you cost by cooked weight.
4. Yield % = EP weight / AP weight. Write the date and who did the test on the recipe card.
5. Repeat when you change supplier or spec.

Proteins that lose weight in cooking need two yields: trim yield and cooking yield. A brisket that loses 40% in the smoker costs much more per served ounce than its invoice price per pound suggests.

How do you cost a sauce or prep item?

Cost the batch once, then use its cost per ounce in every dish that uses it. That is a sub-recipe.

HOUSE SAUCE (batch)
Mayonnaise        32 oz    $4.80
Ketchup            8 oz    $0.70
Pickle relish      4 oz    $0.90
Spices                     $0.40
Batch cost                 $6.80
Batch yield       44 oz
Cost per oz                $0.155

When the price of mayonnaise changes, update one line and every dish with house sauce changes with it. Do the same for stocks, dressings, doughs and portioned proteins.

What is a good food cost percentage in the US?

Use industry medians as a check, not a target. The National Restaurant Association's 2024 medians, reported in its 2025 Restaurant Operations Data Abstract, put full-service food and beverage cost at 32.0% of sales. The NRA also reported that full-service restaurants with $2 million or more in sales ran a 31.0% food cost, against 33.7% below $2 million (16 October 2025). Its 22 July 2026 analysis said food and labor each take approximately 33 cents of every sales dollar, and that average wholesale food prices are up 35% since before the pandemic.

A single number hides the mix. Our decision rule: judge the restaurant by its monthly food cost percentage, and judge each dish by the dollars it leaves after food cost as well as by its percentage. Which dishes to push, reprice or drop is the job of menu engineering. How food cost fits with labor and occupancy is in our US restaurant profit margin guide. For UK operators, the food cost percentage guide covers VAT.

How much have plate costs risen since 2021?

More than menu prices, for some plates. We costed three standard plates with the Bureau of Labor Statistics average price data (US city average, September 2021 against September 2026) and compared them with the CPI for food away from home, which rose 28.2% over the same five years. These are retail grocery prices, not what a restaurant pays wholesale, so read the rate of change, not the dollar amounts.

What that means for food cost: a burger that ran at 30% food cost in 2021, with its price raised in line with restaurant inflation, now runs at about 32.2% (30% x 1.374 / 1.282). The chicken sandwich went the other way, to about 27.8%. A coffee at 15% is now about 21.4%. Beef and coffee drove most of the change: ground beef rose 50.8% and ground coffee 97.2% over the five years, while boneless chicken breast rose 19.5%.

Our method: the series are APU0000703112, APU0000FF1101, APU0000702111, APU0000710212, APU0000712311, APU0000712112, APU0000717311 and APU0000709112, September values, with 2026 data as published on 5 November 2026. Each plate is the sum of quantity x average price, with weights converted from the per-pound prices, coffee at 453.6 g per pound and milk at 128 oz per gallon. The plates are ours, not BLS's. Your plates will differ, which is the case for costing them yourself. If a dish's cost has run ahead of its price, our guide to raising menu prices covers which dishes to move and by how much.

Recipe card and monthly food cost worksheet

Copy both into a spreadsheet. Keep one recipe card per menu item and one worksheet per month.

RECIPE CARD
Dish: ____________   Menu price: $____   Portions per batch: ____   Costed on: __/__/____
Ingredient | Purchase unit | Purchase price | Yield % | Cost per usable unit | Amount served | Line cost
           |               |                |         | =price / yield       |               | =amount x cost
           |               |                |         |                      |               |
Subtotal                                                                                       =SUM
Q factor (2% to 5% for salt, oil, garnish)                                                     =subtotal x Q
PLATE COST                                                                                     =subtotal + Q
FOOD COST %                                                                                    =plate cost / menu price
CASH MARGIN                                                                                    =menu price - plate cost
Target food cost %: ____   Price at target: =plate cost / target

MONTHLY FOOD COST WORKSHEET
Month: ________
Beginning food inventory          $________
+ Food purchases                  $________
+ Transfers in (bar to kitchen)   $________
- Transfers out (kitchen to bar)  $________
- Ending food inventory           $________
= Cost of food sold               $________
Food sales (before sales tax)     $________
FOOD COST %                       =cost of food sold / food sales
Staff meals (tracked separately)  $________
Comps (tracked separately)        $________
Theoretical food cost % (from recipe cards x items sold): ____%
Gap (actual - theoretical): ____ points  -> investigate if more than 2

Want to work backward from a target to a price? The menu price calculator does it per dish. Costing cocktails instead? The pour cost method is in our bar business plan.

Can TablePort handle this for you?

The Stock Management add-on keeps recipe cards current without retyping:

1. Plate cost, ingredient by ingredient. The recipe builder shows the plate cost as you add ingredients, so you can compare it with the price you plan to charge.
2. Prices from invoices. Photograph a supplier invoice, check the lines, and the new prices update every dish that uses them.
3. Trim loss and sub-recipes. Recipe lines can carry a trim loss, and a sauce or stock built once is costed in every dish that uses it.

The honest limit: your recipes have to be entered first. The team helps bring over items, suppliers and recipes; start with your biggest sellers. Stock Management is $199 per location per month. See stock management.