Calculate total recipe cost and per-serving cost from ingredient prices and quantities for menu pricing and catering estimates.
Enter what each ingredient costs, how much of it you bought, how much the recipe uses, and how many servings it makes. The tool converts each price to a cost per unit - per ounce, pound, cup, or piece - multiplies by the amount used, sums the lines into a total recipe cost, and divides by servings for a per-serving food cost. The usual mistake is pricing the whole package rather than the amount used, and treating the result as the full cost of the dish when it is ingredient cost only.
A concrete input and expected output from the current implementation.
Input
Recipe: garlic butter pasta, 4 servings Pasta: 16 oz used, $2.00 per 16 oz box Butter: 4 oz used, $4.00 per 1 lb Garlic: 2 oz used, $2.40 per lb
Expected output
Line costs: pasta $2.00 (16 oz x $0.125/oz); butter $1.00 (4 oz x $0.25/oz); garlic $0.30 (2 oz x $0.15/oz). Total recipe cost: $3.30. Per-serving cost for 4 servings: $0.83.
Each line is unit cost times amount used, and the total is divided by the serving count. $3.30 / 4 = $0.825, which rounds to $0.83 - which is why 4 x $0.83 does not exactly match the $3.30 total.
Each ingredient is entered as a price and a purchase quantity, and the tool reduces it to a cost per unit - dollars per ounce, per pound, per cup, or per piece. It then multiplies that unit cost by the amount the recipe actually uses to get the ingredient's line cost. The chain is price divided by purchase quantity equals unit cost, then unit cost times amount used equals line cost.
The line costs sum to a total recipe cost, which is divided by the number of servings you enter to produce a per-serving food cost. Where the tool supports it, a yield factor accounts for waste - edible weight after trimming, peeling, or draining - so the unit cost applies only to what goes into the dish. Results are rounded to cents.
Because unit cost changes with purchase quantity. The tool works from price divided by purchase quantity: a 10 lb bag of rice at $12.00 is $1.20 per lb, while a 2 lb bag at $4.00 is $2.00 per lb. Same amount used, different line cost - bulk saves money per serving only if the larger package is actually used up before it spoils.
Divide the per-serving food cost by your target food-cost percentage. At 30%, $0.83 divided by 0.30 is about $2.77, so the dish needs a menu price of at least that before rounding up to a marketable number. The percentage is a budget decision - commonly 25-35% in restaurants - not something the calculator sets for you.
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