Nutrition & Food
Intermediate

Food Cost Percentage

Ingredient cost as a share of menu price — a core restaurant metric.

Formula

FC=cingredientspselling×100FC = \frac{c_{ingredients}}{p_{selling}} \times 100

Variables

c_{ingredients}Plate ingredient cost
p_{selling}Menu price

Example

$4.50 cost / $18 price ⇒ 25%

Did You Know?

Most restaurants target a food cost of 28–35%; the rest covers labour, rent and (hopefully) profit.

food costrestaurantpricing