Last updated: May 2026
Know exactly what your recipe costs to make. Add ingredients and prices to get total recipe cost, cost per serving, and food cost percentage for home cooks and food businesses.
Recipe Details
Ingredients & Prices
Cost Summary
Food cost percentage = Ingredient cost ÷ Selling price × 100. The restaurant industry target is typically 28–35%. Fine dining may run 20–25%. Fast casual runs 25–35%.
Total cost per serving includes ingredients only. When you add overhead (labour, energy, packaging, rent allocation), this is called the "fully-loaded cost" and represents your true cost to produce the item.
Unit price calculation: Enter the price you paid for a package (e.g. $5.99 for a 2 lb bag of flour) and the quantity used. The calculator automatically calculates the cost of just the portion you used.
⚠️ Prices entered are your estimates. Actual costs vary by supplier, location, and quantity purchased. This calculator is for planning and estimation only.
Food cost percentage (FCP) is the ratio of ingredient cost to the selling price of a dish. A restaurant charging $18 for a pasta dish that costs $4.50 in ingredients has a 25% food cost — considered healthy for a full-service restaurant. Home cooks use the same math to understand the true cost of a meal or to price dishes for catering, meal prep services, or potlucks with reimbursement.
The formula: Food Cost % = (Ingredient Cost ÷ Menu Price) × 100. Running above your target FCP means the dish is underpriced or over-portioned. Running below means you have room to either improve ingredient quality or lower the price to attract more customers.
| Restaurant Type | Target FCP | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Fine dining | 28–35% | Higher quality ingredients, lower volume |
| Casual / full service | 28–32% | Industry standard range |
| Fast casual | 25–30% | Simpler prep, higher throughput |
| Quick service (fast food) | 25–35% | Varies by item — drinks much lower |
| Catering | 25–35% | Offset by service and rental costs |
| Home meal prep service | 30–40% | Lower overhead than restaurants |
| Bar / beverages | 18–24% | Alcohol margins are much higher |
What is a good food cost percentage for a restaurant?
28–32% is the industry standard target for full-service restaurants. Going above 35% consistently makes it very difficult to turn a profit once you factor in labor (typically 30–35% of revenue), rent, utilities, and other overhead. Some high-volume fast casual concepts operate profitably at slightly higher FCPs because they offset costs with faster table turns and lower labor per cover.
Does food cost include labor?
No — food cost percentage only covers the ingredient cost of a dish. Labor to prepare it is tracked separately as a labor cost percentage. Some operators calculate "prime cost," which combines food cost and labor cost. A healthy prime cost for full-service restaurants is typically under 60–65% of revenue. Food cost alone does not tell you whether a business is profitable.
How do I calculate food cost per serving?
Add up the cost of every ingredient used in the recipe, prorated by the amount used. Example: if a 5 lb bag of flour costs $4 and you use 2 cups (about 250g = 0.55 lbs), your flour cost is $4 × (0.55 ÷ 5) = $0.44. Do this for every ingredient and sum them. The calculator above handles this automatically — enter each ingredient, its total package price, and how much of the package you used.
How do portion sizes affect food cost?
Portion size has a direct, linear effect on food cost. If a 6 oz chicken breast costs $2.40 and a server gives a 7 oz portion instead, that's a 16.7% increase in ingredient cost on that item — on every plate, every service. Restaurants use portion scales and standardized scoops specifically to control this. For home catering, using consistent portion tools (ice cream scoops for salads, measured ladles for sauces) makes cost estimates much more reliable.
What's the difference between theoretical and actual food cost?
Theoretical food cost is what you calculate using your recipes and portion sizes — the "should be" number. Actual food cost is what you really spent on food divided by what you really sold. The difference between them is your "variance" and typically comes from waste, spoilage, staff meals, theft, portioning inconsistency, and prep errors. A well-run restaurant keeps variance under 2–3%. Home cooks rarely need to track this — but for a small food business, the comparison reveals where money is quietly disappearing.