Food Cost Percentage Calculator

It depends on restaurant type:

Pizzerias: 18-22% — dough, sauce, and cheese are inexpensive.
Fast casual/QSR: 25-28% — high volume, simpler menus.
Full-service casual: 28-32% — the most common target.
Fine dining: 35-40% — premium ingredients like A5 wagyu or fresh truffles push costs up.

If your food cost is consistently above 35% (outside fine dining), review pricing, portions, and waste. For a broader look at where your money goes, see our guide on restaurant profit margins.

Food cost is the dollar amount you spend on ingredients — e.g. $4.50 per plate. Food cost percentage is that dollar amount expressed as a share of revenue: $4.50 ÷ $15.00 = 30%.

The percentage is more useful because it accounts for pricing and lets you compare across dishes and time periods. A $4.50 plate cost is great on a $15 menu item (30%) but terrible on a $10 item (45%). Use our cost per serving calculator to find the dollar amount, then this tool to convert it to a percentage.

The formula is: Food Cost % = (Food Cost ÷ Selling Price) × 100.

Two ways to apply it:
Per dish: a $5 ingredient cost on a $16 menu item = 31.3% food cost.
Overall: divide total food purchases for a period by total food revenue. This gives your actual (not theoretical) food cost percentage, including waste, overportioning, and theft.

For the full breakdown of every formula restaurants use, see our food cost percentage formula guide.

Both — they answer different questions.

Per-dish food cost helps you price individual menu items correctly and spot unprofitable dishes. Use the food cost calculator to break down each recipe.

Overall food cost (total food purchases ÷ total food revenue) shows your actual performance including waste, overportioning, and theft. If your actual food cost is 3-5+ points higher than your theoretical (recipe-based) food cost, you have an operational problem worth investigating.

Weekly is ideal for most restaurants. At minimum, check it every time you receive supplier invoices.

Ingredient prices fluctuate with seasons and supply chains — a 10% increase in chicken or produce prices can silently erode your margins across multiple dishes. Restaurants that review weekly catch problems within days. Those that wait until month-end lose 3-4 weeks of profit before noticing.

No. Food cost percentage only includes raw ingredient costs. Labor is tracked separately. Together, food cost + labor cost = "prime cost," which most restaurants aim to keep under 60-65% of revenue.

Track them separately so you know which area needs attention. Use our restaurant labor cost calculator for the labor side. For a complete picture of restaurant financials, see our restaurant profit margins guide.

The gap between theoretical food cost (from recipes) and actual food cost (from invoices) is caused by:

1. Overportioning: A cook who serves 7 oz of chicken instead of 6 oz adds 17% to that ingredient's cost.
2. Waste and spoilage: Improperly stored produce, expired product, over-prepped items.
3. Unrecorded comps: Every free meal that isn't tracked inflates actual cost without a matching sale.
4. Theft: Less common than operators think, but real in high-turnover environments.

A variance under 2% is excellent. Over 5% needs immediate attention. For strategies to close the gap, read our guide on how to control food cost.

Divide your cost per serving by your target food cost percentage (as a decimal). If a dish costs $5.00 in ingredients and you target 30% food cost: $5.00 ÷ 0.30 = $16.67 minimum menu price.

Not every dish needs to hit the same percentage. A steak at 38% is fine if your pasta runs 22%. What matters is the weighted average across your menu mix. Our menu pricing calculator handles this math, and our menu engineering guide shows how to balance high-cost and high-margin items.