Food Cost Calculator
Cost a dish from what you actually buy. Enter your ingredients at purchase prices, say how much the recipe uses, and you'll see what one portion costs, what share of the menu price that is, and what's left as gross profit.
Enter what you bought and what the recipe uses — buy in kilos and cook in grams if that's how it works. Add a selling price and your own target food cost for the full picture. Free, and no sign-up.
Everything above is worked out in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to us, stored, or logged.
These tools give estimates and general information. They are not tax, accounting or legal advice, and they don’t account for the specifics of your business. Always confirm what applies to your situation before acting on a result.
This covers ingredient cost only. It doesn't include labour, rent, utilities, packaging, delivery, wastage, breakages or any other operating cost, and gross profit here is not net profit. Confirm the VAT treatment of your own supplies before pricing on these figures.
How to cost a dish properly
Cost the yield, not the purchase. A 5 kg box of beef at KES 3,000 is not KES 600/kg on the plate if you lose 18% to trim. Cost what reaches the customer.
Weigh the portion, do not estimate it. Every kitchen we have costed portions heavier than the recipe says. Two grams of protein over, four hundred covers a month, and the difference is real money.
Re-cost when your suppliers move. In this market, cooking oil, flour and protein can move ten per cent inside a quarter. A costing done once is a costing that is wrong by the end of the year.
Then count your stock. This calculator gives you the theoretical cost. The gap between that and your actual food cost is the number worth chasing — and it only shows up in a disciplined count.
Get quick answers to your concerns
If your question is not here, message us. We answer questions without opening a file on you.
What food cost percentage should a dish run at?
There is no single right answer, and we would rather say so than quote a number you might price a menu against. It depends on the format, the rent, the labour model and what the dish is doing on the menu — a loss-leader that fills tables can be a good decision as long as you know it is one. What matters more than any individual dish is your blended figure across the whole menu, and whether it is moving. If you want a target that fits your operation rather than a generic one, that is a conversation worth having.
Why is my real food cost worse than this figure?
Because the recipe cost is not the plate cost. Trim, peel, bone, spoilage, spillage, over-portioning, comps and staff meals all sit between what you buy and what you sell, and none of them is in a recipe. This calculator gives you the theoretical cost; your stock counts give you the actual one. The gap between the two is the number worth chasing, and it only shows up in a disciplined count.
Should the menu price include VAT?
The price here is VAT-exclusive. If you are VAT-registered and your menu prices are what the customer pays, strip the VAT out before comparing — use the VAT calculator. Pricing off the VAT-inclusive figure is a quiet way to lose several points of gross profit.
My calculated GP looks fine but the bank account disagrees. Why?
Almost always the gap between theoretical and actual food cost: over-portioning, comps and staff meals that never got logged, a supplier delivering short, or waste nobody is recording. Costing tells you what should be happening. Stock counts tell you what is. You need both, and the difference between them is where the money went.
Want help making sense of the result?
Talk to Cerullo about your business and we’ll help you understand what to do next.