Food cost calculation: how to calculate food cost, with plov, dolma and tea

Plov is on your menu at 14 manat. The hall is full and on Friday the kitchen never stops. Yet at the end of the month there is less money in the till than you expected. The reason is usually the same: you don't know exactly what one portion costs you.

Below is a food cost calculation in manat. Every price is hypothetical, so plug in your own suppliers' figures.

What food cost is and what percentage is normal

Food cost is the value of the ingredients that go into a dish. It is usually quoted in two ways:

• in manat, as the cost of one portion, say 4.30 ₼;
• as a percentage of the selling price, say 30.7%.

Only ingredients count: meat, rice, butter, spices, and the sauce or qatıq served with the portion. Wages, rent, electricity and gas are separate expenses, not food cost.

The right percentage depends on the format; the ranges below are typical industry figures, not rules. Track your own numbers for a few weeks and set your own target.

The formula: per portion and per week

For a single dish:

Food cost % = cost per portion ÷ selling price × 100

For the whole kitchen over a period (a week, a month):

Food cost % = (opening stock + purchases − closing stock) ÷ food sales × 100

Say on Monday morning you had 3,200 ₼ of stock. During the week you bought another 5,800 ₼, and Sunday night's stock count came to 2,900 ₼. So the kitchen used 3,200 + 5,800 − 2,900 = 6,100 ₼ of ingredients. If food sales were 19,000 ₼, food cost is 6,100 ÷ 19,000 = 32.1%.

The first formula tells you what food cost should be. The second tells you what it actually was. The gap between them is loss: heavy portions, spoiled stock, write-offs nobody recorded, and sometimes theft.

Worked example: how to calculate food cost for plov

Nobody cooks plov one portion at a time, so we cost a 10-portion pot and divide. In the table, gross is the weight you buy, loss is trimming, bones and shells, and net is what goes into the pot. You pay for the gross weight, so cost is calculated from gross.

One portion: 43.00 ÷ 10 = 4.30 ₼. With plov at 14.00 ₼ on the menu, food cost is 4.30 ÷ 14.00 = 30.7%, and each portion leaves 9.70 ₼ of gross profit.

Notice that meat is the biggest line, at more than half the cost of the pot (24.00 ÷ 43.00 ≈ 56%). Saffron is a single gram, yet it costs more than all the rice. Even an ingredient measured in grams can cost real money.

How losses and supplier prices move the numbers

The same plov, three everyday scenarios:

1. The meat loss is forgotten. The recipe says 1.2 kg of lamb, but that is the net weight. The calculation shows 1.2 × 16.00 = 19.20 ₼, while you actually pay 24.00 ₼. The portion comes out at 3.82 ₼, with food cost at 27.3%. It looks fine on paper, but every portion is 0.48 ₼ short in the till.
2. Frying and cooking losses go up. A pot normally yields 4.5 kg of finished plov, enough for ten 450 g portions. If the rice dries out and the yield drops to 4.05 kg, you get 9 portions. The pot costs the same, but a portion is now 43.00 ÷ 9 = 4.78 ₼ and food cost is 34.1%.
3. The supplier raises the price. Lamb goes from 16 to 19 ₼/kg. The meat line becomes 28.50 ₼, the pot 47.50 ₼, the portion 4.75 ₼ and food cost 33.9%. At 120 portions of plov a week, that is 54 ₼ gone every week. To get back to the old percentage, you would have to raise the price to about 15.50 ₼ or find another supplier.

The rule is simple: write losses down as percentages, weigh the finished yield, and update the recipe card on the day a supplier invoice arrives with a new price.

Dolma and tea with mürəbbə: small details, real money

Dolma: the qatıq on the side is food cost too

Costing for 10 portions (hypothetical prices):

• minced meat: 1.2 kg × 15.00 ₼ = 18.00 ₼
• brined vine leaves: 0.40 kg × 8.00 ₼ = 3.20 ₼ (some leaves tear, so this is the gross weight)
• rice: 0.25 kg × 3.20 ₼ = 0.80 ₼
• onion, herbs, garlic, spices: 1.50 ₼
• qatıq for serving, 100 g a portion, 1 kg in total × 3.50 ₼ = 3.50 ₼

That is 27.00 ₼ in total, or 2.70 ₼ a portion. At 9.00 ₼ on the menu, food cost is 30.0%. Forget the qatıq and the portion seems to cost 2.35 ₼, with food cost at 26.1%. The more extras you put on the plate, such as sauce, qatıq, lavash or a plate of fresh herbs, the more money drops out of the calculation.

Tea with mürəbbə: let a spoon measure the portion, not the eye

Tea for one: an armudu glass, a slice of lemon, sugar cubes and 50 g of mürəbbə, the fruit preserve served with tea.

• tea leaves: 5 g (30.00 ₼/kg) = 0.15 ₼
• lemon: 10 g (4.00 ₼/kg) = 0.04 ₼
• sugar cubes: 15 g (2.00 ₼/kg) = 0.03 ₼
• mürəbbə: 50 g (12.00 ₼/kg) = 0.60 ₼

Total 0.82 ₼. At 4.00 ₼ that is a 20.5% food cost. Now say the waiter fills the little dish by eye and puts in 100 g. Cost rises to 1.42 ₼ and food cost to 35.5%. The tea itself is cheap. What drives the cost is the size of the jam dish. Identical dishes or a measuring spoon solve the problem.

Why "cost × 3" does not work for every dish

"Multiply the cost by three" means a food cost of about 33%. As a starting point, that is fine. Applied blindly to every dish, it loses you money.

What the table shows:

• Manat matter more than percentages. Plov has the highest food cost, yet each sale brings in 9.70 ₼, three times as much as tea. A low percentage does not automatically mean more money.
• "× 3" underprices cheap items. Tea would sell at 2.46 ₼, when guests happily pay 4 manat for it. On plov the 1.10 ₼ difference adds up to 132 ₼ a week at 120 portions.
• Labour is not in food cost. Rolling dolma takes hours, and "× 3" ignores that work.

When you set a price, look beyond cost: competitors' prices, how guests value the dish, preparation time and how well it sells. ABC analysis shows sales and margin side by side, and in Dishment it is part of the extended reports.

How to keep food cost under control every week

Prices, suppliers and cooks keep changing, so food cost needs a weekly routine:

1. Count key ingredients every week. Check meat, butter, cooking oil, saffron and alcohol on the same day and at the same hour, before opening.
2. Compare expected use with actual use. For example, you started the week with 8 kg of lamb, received 30 kg and ended with 6 kg, so 32 kg was used. The recipe cards call for 18 kg for 120 portions of plov and 10 kg for other dishes, 28 kg in total. The 4 kg gap is 64 ₼ a week, roughly 256 ₼ a month.
3. Enter every invoice with its price. If a supplier raises a price, you want to see it the same day, not at the end of the month.
4. Control portions. Scales on the pass, ladles and dishes of a fixed size, a photo of the plated dish on the wall. Portions served "by eye" push food cost up without anyone noticing.
5. Record write-offs with a reason. Note whether stock was spoiled, dropped or used for a staff meal. Anything not written down later shows up as a shortage.
6. Watch your 10 best-selling dishes. If food cost drifts 2–3 points above target, find out why: price, portion or loss.

A system can take over most of this routine. In Dishment's Warehouse and recipes module, a tech card holds the gross weight, loss percentage and net weight, and every dish sold deducts its ingredients automatically. You see the cost and margin of every portion at average purchase cost. A stock count puts the book balance next to what you counted and shows the difference in manat. Dishes without a recipe card are listed separately, and ingredients running low are highlighted. To see expenses and profit as a whole, there is the Finance module.