Restaurant Food Cost Calculator for Portion Costing and Menu Pricing

Restaurant Food Cost Calculator Sign

This recipe cost calculator, listed as one of The Top Resources To Help You Design Your Own Menu by MenuShoppe.com, will help you to quickly and easily break down bulk food purchase costs into portion costs.

You can either use the calculator for individual portion costing (say a 5-ounce portion of French fries), or you can use the calculator to cost a complete recipe or a menu item.

Plus, you can even enter the menu price and the calculator will calculate the food cost percentage for you!

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Restaurant Food Cost Calculator

Calculate food costs for pricing portions and menu items.

Special Instructions

Learn More

Selected Data Record:

A Data Record is a set of calculator entries that are stored in your web browser's Local Storage. If a Data Record is currently selected in the "Data" tab, this line will list the name you gave to that data record. If no data record is selected, or you have no entries stored for this calculator, the line will display "None".

DataData recordData recordSelected data record: None
Menu Item (Optional)

Menu item:

If you are costing a menu item that has more than one ingredient, complete this top section. Otherwise, if you are just costing a single ingredient you can leave this section blank.

Menu name:Menu name:Menu item name:Menu item name:

Menu item name:

If you are costing a menu item having more than one ingredient, and you would like the menu item name included in the food cost summary, enter it on this line.

Menu price:Menu price:Menu item price:Menu item price:

Menu item price:

If you would like the restaurant food cost calculator to calculate the food cost percentage of a menu item having more than one ingredient, enter the menu price on this line.

$
Target %:Target percent:Target food cost percent:Target food cost percentage:

Target food cost percentage:

If you have a target food cost percentage in mind, enter it here and the calculator will calculate the price you would need to charge for the menu item in order to achieve your target food cost percentage. Enter as a percentage but without the percent sign (for .25 or 25%, enter 25).

%
Menu Item Ingredient

Menu item ingredient:

Important: Depending on the width of the calculator, a different entry form will be displayed along with a different set of instructions. Narrow widths will display a mobile-optimized form, whereas wider widths will display a desktop optimized form.

Enter the description, costs and quantities of an ingredient of the menu item and then click the AddAddAdd IngredientAdd Ingredient to List button to add the ingredient to the menu item cost summary.

If you would like to edit an ingredient already entered, select it from the list at the bottom of the calculator, make the changes to your entries, and click the SaveSaveSave ChangesSave Changes button.

To delete an entered ingredient, select the ingredient from the list at the bottom of the calculator and click the DelDeleteDeleteDelete button.

To clear the form only affecting any saved ingredients, click the CCClearClear Form button.

For each menu item ingredient, click the Add Ingredient Row button and complete the applicable entry fields.

To remove an ingredient, click the "X" button in the left-hand column.

Common Conversions

Weight
1 pound = 16 ounces
Liquid
1 gallon = 128 fluid ounces
1 quart = 32 fluid ounces
1 pint = 16 fluid ounces
1 cup = 8 fluid ounces

X
1
Item
Descrip-
tion

Item description:

Enter a short description of the ingredient you are calculating the portion cost for. The description may be any length, but longer descriptions will distort the summary report.


2
Lot
Cost
$

Lot cost:

Enter the lowest known lot cost of the ingredient. This is usually the cost per case, but may also be the cost per gallon, tray (bread), pound, etc.

The restaurant food cost calculator calculates cost breakdowns from left to right and stops wherever you do -- using the last calculated cost as the serving-size unit (piece).


3
Units
Per
Lot

Units per lot:

Enter the quantity you want the lot cost divided by. The cost per unit will be calculated and displayed in Column #4.


4
Unit
Cost
$

Unit cost:

This is the lot cost (column #2) divided by the number of units (column #3).


5
Parts
Per
Unit

Parts per unit:

If a cost is calculated in the previous column (unit cost), enter the quantity you want that cost divided by. The cost per part will be calculated and displayed in Column #6.


6
Part
Cost
$

Part cost:

This is the unit cost (column #4) divided by the number of parts (column #5).


7
Pcs
Per
Part

Pieces per part:

If a cost is calculated in the previous column (part cost), enter the quantity you want that cost divided by. The cost per piece will be calculated and displayed in Column #8.


8
Piece
Cost
$

Piece cost:

This is the part cost (column #6) divided by the number of pieces (column #7).


9
Pcs
Per
Serv

Pieces per serving:

Enter the serving size based on the right-most calculated cost. The restaurant food cost calculator uses the last calculated cost as the amount to calculate the portion cost.

If you want to designate a unit of measurement for the serving size, enter a dash after the size number, followed by the measurement description for the number of pieces in the serving size (4-oz, 2-each, 3-slices, etc).


10
Serv
Cost
$

Serving cost:

This is the last calculated cost multiplied by the serving size.

Total food cost:

Total food cost:

This is the total of portion cost of all entered ingredients.

Food cost percentage:

Food cost percentage:

This is the percentage of the menu price the food cost represents.

Target menu price:

Target menu price:

This is the price you would need to charge to achieve your target food cost percentage for this item (if entered).

Item:Item:Item description:Item description:

Item description:

Enter a description of the ingredient you are calculating the portion cost for. The description may be any length, but longer descriptions will distort the summary report. Note that the description will be truncated to 4 letters for labelling the radio buttons, but will maintain its full length for the printer-friendly report.

Lot cost:Lot cost:Lot cost:Lot cost:

Lot cost:

Enter the lowest known lot cost of the ingredient. This is usually the cost per case, but may also be cost per: gallon, tray (bread), pound, etc.

The restaurant food cost calculator calculates cost breakdowns from top to bottom and stops wherever you do -- using the last calculated cost as the serving-size unit (piece).

$
Lot units:Lot units:Units per lot:Units per lot:

Units per lot:

Enter the quantity you want the lot cost divided by. The cost per unit will be calculated and displayed to the right of the unit quantity entered.

#
$0.00
Unit parts:Unit parts:Parts per unit:Parts per unit:

Parts per unit:

If a cost is calculated in the previous row (part cost), enter the quantity you want that cost divided by. The cost per part will be calculated and displayed to the right of the parts-per-unit quantity entered.

#
$0.00
Part pcs:Part pieces:Pieces per part:Pieces per part:

Pieces per part:

If a cost is calculated in the previous row (part cost), enter the quantity you want that cost divided by. The cost per piece will be calculated and displayed to the right of pieces-per-part quantity entered.

#
$0.00
Serv pcs:Serve pcs:Serve pieces:Pieces per serving:

Pieces per serving:

Enter the serving size based on the bottom-most calculated cost. The restaurant food cost calculator uses the last calculated cost as the amount to calculate the portion cost.

In the field to the right of the serving size, enter the measurement description for the number of pieces in the serving size, such as oz, each, slices, etc.

#
Serve cost:Serving cost:Cost per serving:Cost per serving:

Serving cost:

This is the last calculated cost multiplied by the serving size. Note that you can enter an amount in this row without making any entries in the previous rows and it will be included in the food cost calculation.

If you would like to save the current entries to the secure online database, tap or click on the Data tab, select "New Data Record", give the data record a name, then tap or click the Save button. To save changes to previously saved entries, simply tap the Save button. Please select and "Clear" any data records you no longer need.

Help and Tools

Learn

How to calculate food costs.

Having owned a restaurant myself, I have a keen understanding of how important food and beverage cost control is when it comes to generating restaurant profits.

In fact, during the 6-years I owned my own restaurant I used a food cost spreadsheet similar to the restaurant food cost calculator as a means of pricing my menu to achieve my food cost percentage goals.

In case you're not familiar with the manual method for determining food cost percentage, let's first take a look at the formula.

Food Cost Percentage Formula

To calculate the food cost percentage of an individual portion or menu item, you simply add up the cost of the ingredient(s) and divide that result by the menu price.

Total Cost of Ingredients ÷ Menu Price = Food Cost Percentage

Here's an example of the food cost percentage formula in action.

Suppose you want to know what your food cost percentage is for a 5-ounce side of French fries that you sell for $1.50. Here is how you take the bulk purchase price of a case of French fries (consisting of say, 6 5-pound bags) and break it down into the portion cost so you can calculate the food cost percentage:

Food Cost Percentage of 5-oz Serving of Fries Priced at $1.50
Cost of 1 case of French fries:$19.00
Cost per bag$19.00 ÷ 6$3.17
Cost per pound$3.17 ÷ 5$0.63
Cost per ounce$0.63 ÷ 16$0.04
5-ounce portion cost$0.04 x 5$0.20
Food cost percentage$0.20 ÷ $1.5013.33%

Of course, your target food cost percentage will depend on what type of restaurant you own and what your overhead and variable costs are.

In my case I tried to keep my breakfast food costs below 23%, my lunch food costs under 28%, and my supper food costs below 38%.

Back to CalculatorBack to CalculatorBack to Restaurant Food Cost CalculatorBack up to Restaurant Food Cost Calculator

Adjust Calculator Width:

Move the slider to left and right to adjust the calculator width. Note that the Help and Tools panel will be hidden when the calculator is too wide to fit both on the screen. Moving the slider to the left will bring the instructions and tools panel back into view.

Also note that some calculators will reformat to accommodate the screen size as you make the calculator wider or narrower. If the calculator is narrow, columns of entry rows will be converted to a vertical entry form, whereas a wider calculator will display columns of entry rows, and the entry fields will be smaller in size ... since they will not need to be "thumb friendly".

Show/Hide Popup Keypads:

Select Show or Hide to show or hide the popup keypad icons located next to numeric entry fields. These are generally only needed for mobile devices that don't have decimal points in their numeric keypads. So if you are on a desktop, you may find the calculator to be more user-friendly and less cluttered without them.

Stick/Unstick Tools:

Select Stick or Unstick to stick or unstick the help and tools panel. Selecting "Stick" will keep the panel in view while scrolling the calculator vertically. If you find that annoying, select "Unstick" to keep the panel in a stationary position.

If the tools panel becomes "Unstuck" on its own, try clicking "Unstick" and then "Stick" to re-stick the panel.