What is Food Cost Percentage?
Food cost percentage is the cost of the ingredients in a dish or in all food sold, divided by the selling price or food sales.
Updated
Meaning
English
Food cost percentage is the cost of the ingredients in a dish or in all food sold, divided by the selling price or food sales.
Roman Urdu
Food cost percentage kisi dish ya kul khane ke ingredients ki cost ko selling price ya food sale se taqseem karne par milta hai.
Also called food cost, food cost %, plate cost.
Example
A chicken biryani plate sells for 650 rupees and its rice, chicken, oil, spices and raita cost 240 rupees. Food cost is 240 divided by 650, about 37%.
How it works
Food cost is the restaurant version of gross margin. Owners usually aim for a target range for each type of dish, then check actual food cost each week: opening stock of ingredients plus purchases minus closing stock, divided by food sales. If the actual figure is much higher than the recipes say it should be, the difference is waste, over-portioning or theft.
Prices of chicken, cooking oil, ghee and vegetables change often in Pakistan, so a dish that was profitable last month may not be now. Recheck plate costs whenever major ingredient prices move.
In Nafaa
Nafaa restaurant recipes show each dish's plate cost at today's purchase rates and its food cost percentage, which can be edited in place. Voided bills with dishes already cooked are booked as kitchen waste.
Related terms
- Recipe Costing
Recipe costing works out the cost of one portion or batch of a dish by adding up the cost of every ingredient in the quantity the recipe uses.
- Menu Engineering
Menu engineering is the review of each dish by how often it sells and how much profit it earns, to decide which dishes to promote, reprice, change or remove.
- Gross Margin
Gross margin is gross profit shown as a percentage of the selling price: (selling price minus cost) divided by selling price.
- Wastage
Wastage is stock that is damaged, spoilt, expired or used up without being sold, and must be written off.