Recipe card and food cost: the method, with a free template

A recipe card describes a recipe for a given number of portions. It serves the kitchen, which finds everything it needs to make the dish exactly the same way, and management, which reads what it costs.

A complete recipe card brings together the name of the dish and the number of portions; each ingredient with its net weight (what ends up on the plate) and gross weight (what is bought); the yield that links the two; the steps and the plating, with a photo; the allergens; the cost per portion and the date of the version.

Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 sets out the fourteen allergens that must be declared, from gluten to molluscs, including milk, eggs and mustard. Since Decree No. 2015-447 of 17 April 2015, now Articles R412-12 to R412-16 of the French Consumer Code, a restaurant serving meals on the premises states in writing, legibly and visibly, which of them its dishes contain, or displays how this written information can be freely consulted. The recipe card is the place to keep them up to date: a replacement ingredient can add one.

The free Excel template that comes with this guide, in French, covers the costing side: ingredients, weights, yields, prices and cost per portion, plus an example and the ‘Théorique et réel’ (theoretical and actual) sheet. Steps, photo and allergens are added alongside.

You buy a product gross and serve it net: trimming meat, peeling a vegetable or picking over salad leaves loses weight. Yield measures that loss, and the usable price per kilo takes it into account.

Example: rump steak bought at €17.10 per kilo excl. VAT and trimmed with a 90% yield works out at 17.10 ÷ 0.90 = €19.00 per usable kilo. To serve 180 g, you need to buy 180 ÷ 0.90 = 200 g.

Yield is measured, not assumed: weigh the product on delivery, then after preparation, across several batches. It varies with the supplier, the size grade, the season and the hands doing the work. An overestimated yield underestimates the cost of every portion, and nothing flags it before the stocktake.

For a cooked product, two losses often add up: the preparation loss, then the cooking loss. Note on the recipe card at which stage the weight is taken.

The food cost of a portion adds up the cost of each ingredient, yield included. Work excluding VAT, like the selling price you will compare it with.

The result is the same as with the gross weight and the purchase price: 0.180 kg × €19.00 = 0.200 kg × €17.10 = €3.42.

Total: 3.42 + 0.24 + 0.30 + 0.15 + 0.43 + 0.26 = €4.80 of food cost for one portion. This is the ‘Exemple’ sheet in the Excel template, to redo with your own prices.

Example: prices and yields given for the calculation.

Food cost percentage, often just called food cost, expresses food cost as a share of the selling price excluding VAT. It shows how much of each euro taken goes on raw ingredients.

Example: the tartare sells for €18.50 excl. VAT. Its food cost percentage is 4.80 ÷ 18.50 = 25.9%, rounded to 26%. That leaves 18.50 − 4.80 = €13.70 of gross margin per portion, before staff, rent and other costs.

The calculation is always done on the price excluding VAT: on the price including VAT, the same dish would show 4.80 ÷ 20.35 = 23.6%, with nothing changed on the plate.

What percentage should you aim for? There is no universal right figure. It depends on the concept, the average price, the work each dish takes and the share of drinks in sales. A dish with a low percentage that rarely sells earns less than a dish with a higher percentage that goes out every service: look at the percentage and the gross margin in euros, dish by dish.

The markup factor looks at the problem the other way round: it tells you what to multiply food cost by to get the selling price excluding VAT. It is the inverse of the food cost percentage.

Example: 18.50 ÷ 4.80 = 3.85. Aiming for a 26% food cost percentage comes to the same thing: 1 ÷ 0.26 = 3.85. The menu price including VAT is 18.50 × 1.10 = €20.35.

In France, the 10% rate applies to dishes served on the premises, and also to dishes sold to take away or delivered for immediate consumption. A product packed in a container that allows it to be kept falls under 5.5%; alcoholic drinks under 20% in every case. Check the rate for each product according to how it is sold.

In practice, you often start from a rounded menu price including VAT: €20.50 incl. VAT gives 20.50 ÷ 1.10 = €18.64 excl. VAT, and a food cost percentage of 4.80 ÷ 18.64 = 25.8%. The markup factor is a starting point, not a price list: the final price also takes account of your customers, the competition and the balance of the menu.

The recipe card gives a theoretical cost: what the menu should have cost, with every portion served as written. The stocktake gives the actual cost: what it consumed. The two are compared over the same period, excluding VAT.

Example: 320 tartares sold in the month make 320 × 4.80 = €1,536 of theoretical cost. Across the whole menu, on €25,000 of sales excl. VAT, the theoretical cost comes to €7,000, or 28.0%. The stocktake gives €3,200 of opening stock, €7,400 of purchases and €3,000 of closing stock: €7,600 actual, or 30.4%. The variance: €600, or 2.4 points.

Before putting it down to waste, check the causes: portions more generous than the recipe card, unrecorded waste, staff meals, out-of-date purchase prices, counting errors, unrecorded sales. In a group, the same recipe card is used everywhere: compare variances site by site, as described in the method for managing several restaurants.

The actual figure is only as good as the stocktakes: the stock management guide explains how to count. Theoretical, actual and variance are then tracked month after month, by hand or with gross margin tracking software.

A recipe card that is right today will be wrong in three months if prices move and it doesn’t. Update an ingredient’s purchase price as soon as an invoice changes it, starting with those that weigh most in the cost: often meat or fish.

Example: if rump steak goes from €17.10 to €19.00 per kilo, its cost rises to 0.200 × 19.00 = €3.80. The portion then costs €5.18, and the food cost percentage goes from 26% to 28% without the recipe changing.

Date every version: an amended recipe card must not rewrite the cost of past months, otherwise yesterday’s theoretical cost can no longer be compared with yesterday’s actual.

The mistakes that come up most often: applying the purchase price to the net weight, which leaves out the yield; calculating the percentage on the price including VAT; forgetting what you can’t see, such as seasoning, sauce, garnish or the bread served with the dish; assuming a yield instead of weighing it; writing down a weight that nobody sticks to in the kitchen. A recipe card is only worth something if it describes what really goes out at the pass.

Food cost or cost price? Strictly speaking, the cost price of a dish adds staff, energy and a share of overheads to the ingredients. In kitchens, the term often means food cost alone: make clear which one you mean. The recipe card calculates food cost, and that is the figure your food cost percentage is calculated on.

Should VAT be included in food cost? No: purchase costs and selling prices are compared excluding VAT. The price including VAT is only for display, once the price excluding VAT has been set.

How do you cost a sauce or a stock made in advance? Give it a recipe card of its own, for a given quantity, with its own cost per kilo or per litre. It then becomes an ingredient in the dishes that use it, at the weight used.

Excel or software? For a few dishes, the free Excel template is enough: duplicate the sheet for each recipe. When the menu grows, prices change often or several sites share the same recipes, recipe costing software linked to purchasing and sales recalculates costs with every new price.

How often should you compare theoretical and actual? At every stocktake, over the same period as the purchases. The shorter the period, the easier it is to trace a variance to its cause.