Calculate food cost percentage and menu pricing for restaurants with ingredient costs, portion sizes, and target margin analysis.
Food cost percentage - the share of a dish's price that pays for its ingredients - is what this calculator computes. Give it the cost of a portion and the menu price, and it returns the percentage; give it the portion cost and a target percentage, and it works backwards to the menu price that hits the target. Portion size is the input that connects recipe quantities to cost per plate. The surprise for most users: food cost percentage is not profit margin. Labor, rent, and overhead still come out of whatever the ingredients leave behind, so 30% food cost is a starting point, not the take.
A concrete input and expected output from the current implementation.
Input
Portion cost: $2.25 per plate (already accounting for trimmings and cooking loss). Target food cost: 30%. Menu price: to be determined.
Expected output
Suggested menu price: $7.50. Check: $2.25 / $7.50 = 30.0% food cost. Gross margin: $5.25 per plate (70% of price).
Menu price equals portion cost divided by the target percentage: 2.25 / 0.30 = 7.50. At that price the ingredients consume exactly 30% of the selling price, and the remaining $5.25 must cover labor, overhead, and profit.
The calculator works from the cost of a single portion. For recipes, that means summing ingredient costs (price per unit times quantity used), then dividing by the number of portions the batch yields. Yield matters here: if you enter the price of an ingredient as bought, trim and cooking loss inflate the real cost per usable gram, and forgetting that makes every downstream number optimistic.
Food cost percentage is portion cost divided by menu price. Entering cost and price returns the percentage; entering cost and a target percentage returns the price that lands on it exactly, by dividing cost by the target. The tool also shows gross margin in dollars and cents (price minus portion cost), the amount left to cover labor, rent, and profit.
It depends on the concept. Many full-service restaurants budget food cost in the high 20s to low 30s as a percentage of sales; quick-service and bar businesses often run lower, and beverages usually much lower. Use the calculator to see where each item sits, compare items against each other, and watch how the percentage moves when ingredient prices change. Your own trend matters more than any single benchmark.
Not automatically. The percentage measures ingredient efficiency, not profitability. Paying less for ingredients can change quality and volume, and raising the price to hit a lower percentage can push customers to other dishes. The calculator shows the arithmetic relationship between cost, price, and percentage; whether acting on it helps depends on demand and competition, which the tool does not model.
The example and behavioral notes were checked against the browser implementation. Standards and primary references below define the relevant format, formula, or platform behavior.
Calculate gross, operating, and net profit margins from cost and revenue with breakeven analysis.
Convert between annual salary and hourly rate with adjustments for work hours, overtime, and benefits.
Calculate sales tax amounts, tax-inclusive and tax-exclusive prices for any tax rate or jurisdiction.
Calculate return on investment from initial cost and final value with annualized ROI and comparison tables.
Convert between markup and margin percentages, calculate selling price, and compare pricing strategies.
Convert numeric amounts to written words for invoices, checks, and legal documents in multiple currencies.