Free Food Cost Calculator 2026

Calculate the food cost of dishes, cocktails and drinks, the margin and ideal selling price — in seconds, no sign-up.

Enter your recipe ingredients with quantity and price: the calculator instantly shows the food cost percentage, gross margin and the selling price you need to hit your target food cost.

Dish ingredients

€0,27
€1,20
€0,66
€0,60
€0,18

Result

Ingredient cost
€2,91
Food cost
23%
Target Restaurant: 25–35%
Gross margin
€9,82
77%
Suggested price
€9,70
incl. VAT €10,67

Price (net) to reach your target food cost

Save recipe

The maths is the easy part. Keeping it up to date is the real work.

~26 hrs/month
of manual handling at 120 invoices a month, 12-15 minutes each: time a dedicated tool gives you back in the kitchen.
12-15 min per invoice
is the manual work for each supplier invoice. EUSTAK reads them and updates the cost of every recipe.
Always real
every dish's food cost recalculates the moment a supplier changes price — with no data entry.
2-4% of revenue
is what unmonitored waste costs on average each year. EUSTAK surfaces the gap between theoretical and actual food cost.

The 12-15 minutes per invoice benchmark comes from published research on manual invoice handling (Ardent Partners). The monthly hours are a worked example; the waste share is an indicative estimate. Your figure depends on invoice and SKU volume.

This is today's theoretical food cost.

Your actual food cost changes every time a supplier raises prices. EUSTAK reads your invoices and updates ingredient costs across all recipes automatically — no manual entry.

Try EUSTAK free →

How to calculate the food cost of a dish

Food cost is the percentage of the selling price that goes to raw ingredients. The formula is simple: food cost % = (ingredient cost ÷ selling price) × 100.

For each ingredient, multiply the quantity used by the unit price from your latest supplier invoice, then add it all up. The total divided by the selling price gives the dish's food cost percentage.

What is an ideal food cost

For most restaurants a healthy food cost sits between 25% and 35%. Pizzerias can run 20-28%, fine dining can exceed 35% because it uses premium ingredients: the percentage is higher, but high prices still leave a strong margin in euros per dish.

Always read the food cost percentage together with the euro margin: a dish with a higher food cost but a high price can earn more than a low-food-cost dish with little absolute margin.

Theoretical vs actual food cost

This calculator gives you the theoretical food cost — the one on paper. The actual food cost is almost always higher, due to waste, irregular portions and supplier price increases not updated in recipes.

That is why food cost should be recalculated whenever purchase prices change, not just once.

Break-even point: how much you need to bill to cover fixed costs

The break-even point is the monthly revenue you need to generate just to cover the venue's fixed costs (rent, staff, utilities), before you start making a profit. It is calculated by dividing monthly fixed costs by the average contribution margin — the percentage of every euro taken in that is left after paying for ingredients (100% minus the average food cost).

Example: fixed costs €8,000/month, average food cost 30% (contribution margin 70%). The break-even point is 8,000 ÷ 0.70 ≈ €11,430 in monthly revenue. Below that threshold the venue runs at a loss even if every dish looks profitable on its own.

FAQ

EUSTAK costs less than one hour of your time a month — and saves you about 26.

Stop recalculating food cost by hand

With EUSTAK every dish’s food cost updates automatically with each invoice, with alerts when a cost rises too much.

Try for free →See pricing

Learn more