Recipe Costing and Food Cost Percentage

Food cost percentage tells you how much of each rupee of sales goes into ingredients. Recipe costing is how you know it dish by dish.

The formula

Food cost % = cost of ingredients ÷ selling price × 100. If a dish costs ₹100 to make and sells at ₹350, the food cost is about 28.6%.

Costing a recipe

1. List every ingredient and quantity per plate
2. Use the current purchase rate per unit
3. Add yield loss for trimming and cooking
4. Add garnish and packing if used
5. Sum for the plate cost

Typical targets

Targets vary by type of restaurant, so set your own after checking real numbers rather than copying a figure.

Actual vs expected

Recipe-based stock deduction tells you what should have been used. A count tells you what was used. The gap is wastage, portion errors or leakage.

In NexoraRMS-POS

Recipes link dishes to raw materials. Selling a dish deducts the ingredients, the recipe screen shows cost, food cost % and margin, and the stock variance report shows gaps. See inventory and recipe costing.

Review weekly

• Update purchase rates
• Reprice dishes with high food cost
• Check variance on top materials
• Train cooks on portion size

A worked example

At a selling price of ₹280, food cost is about 17%. The numbers here are illustrations, not benchmarks; use your own rates.

Restaurant Inventory & Recipe Costing SoftwareRestaurant Purchase & Vendor SoftwareRestaurant Inventory and Wastage ControlMenu Engineering Guide