Food Cost Calculator
Work out the exact food cost percentage of any dish — and the price you should charge to hit your target margin. Free, instant, no sign-up.
Total cost of raw ingredients used to plate this one dish.
Menu price before GST.
Current Food Cost
30.0%
Healthy range
Gross Profit / Dish
₹210.00
Before labour & overheads
Price for Target %
₹300.00
To hit your target food cost
This tool gives an estimate for planning purposes. It excludes labour, packaging, delivery commissions and overheads — see the Profit Margin Calculator for the full picture.
How to calculate food cost percentage
Food cost percentage tells you what share of a dish's selling price goes toward the raw ingredients. It's the single most important number for menu pricing — get it wrong across your menu and no amount of footfall will make the restaurant profitable.
Example: a butter chicken that costs ₹90 in chicken, cream, butter and spices, sold at ₹300, has a food cost of (90 ÷ 300) × 100 = 30%. The remaining 70% covers labour, rent, utilities, marketing — and hopefully, profit.
What's a good food cost percentage in India?
| Restaurant Type | Typical Food Cost % |
|---|---|
| Fine dining | 28–33% |
| Casual / full-service restaurant | 28–35% |
| Café | 20–28% |
| QSR / fast casual | 28–33% |
| Cloud kitchen (delivery-heavy) | 30–38% |
These are working benchmarks, not hard rules — a restaurant with lower rent and high volume can absorb a higher food cost, while a premium-rent location may need to run leaner.
5 ways to reduce food cost without cutting quality
- 1.
Fix portion sizes. Standardise every recipe with exact gram weights — portion drift is the single biggest silent cost leak in most kitchens.
- 2.
Track wastage daily. Log spoilage, over-prep and plate returns with a reason code so patterns become visible instead of invisible.
- 3.
Re-cost recipes quarterly. Vegetable and protein prices move — a recipe costed a year ago is often quietly wrong today.
- 4.
Engineer your menu. Nudge guests toward higher-margin dishes with placement, photography and combo pricing.
- 5.
Compare suppliers regularly. A 5% saving on your top 10 ingredients often moves overall food cost more than any single menu change.
Frequently asked questions
Most full-service restaurants in India target 28–35% food cost. Cafés and dessert-led menus often run lower, around 20–28%, while QSRs and cloud kitchens with heavy protein or delivery packaging costs can run 32–38% and still be profitable if pricing and volume are right.
Divide the cost of the ingredients used to make a dish by the dish's selling price, then multiply by 100. For example, a dish that costs ₹90 to make and sells for ₹300 has a food cost of 30%.
Use your selling price excluding GST, since GST is collected on behalf of the government and isn't part of your revenue. Ingredient costs should include any non-recoverable input taxes you actually pay.
Divide the ingredient cost by your target food cost percentage (as a decimal). A dish costing ₹90 with a 30% target food cost should sell for ₹90 ÷ 0.30 = ₹300.
No — this tool isolates raw ingredient cost against selling price. For a full profitability picture including labour and overheads, use the Profit Margin Calculator.
Yes. Candle OS links every menu item to its recipe, so food cost per dish is calculated live as ingredient prices change — no manual recalculation needed.
Let Candle OS do this for every dish, automatically.
Recipe-linked inventory means food cost updates itself every time an ingredient price changes.