How to Calculate Food Cost Percentage (With Examples)

If you only track one number in your restaurant, make it food cost percentage. It tells you how much of each pound of revenue is eaten up by ingredients — and whether you're actually making money.

The formula

The food cost percentage of a single dish is simple:

Food cost % = (cost of ingredients ÷ selling price) × 100

A worked example

Say a chicken shawarma sandwich costs you:

• Bread: 3
• Chicken: 12
• Sauces & veg: 4
• Packaging: 2

That's a total cost of 21. If you sell it for 60, then:

food cost % = (21 ÷ 60) × 100 = 35%

What's a good target?

Most healthy restaurants run a food cost between 25% and 35%. Below 25% and you may be overpricing or under-portioning; above 35% and your margins are thin. The right target depends on your concept — a fine-dining steakhouse runs higher than a high-volume café.

Tracking it across the whole menu

A single dish is easy. The hard part is keeping food cost accurate across dozens of items while ingredient prices keep changing. When the price of oil or chicken jumps, every dish that uses it is suddenly less profitable — and most owners don't notice for months.

This is where software helps: Wizzora stores each recipe, and when you update one ingredient's price, it instantly re-costs every dish that uses it and flags the ones that slipped above your target.

Try it free and get accurate food cost on every item without the spreadsheets.