How do you calculate food cost for catering?

Step 1: cost the recipe

List each ingredient with the quantity the recipe uses. Price it from your latest invoice, not from memory. Prices move, and an old price is the most common reason a dish quietly stops making money.

Step 2: correct for yield

You pay for the whole salmon side, the whole cauliflower, the whole bunch of herbs. You do not serve all of it. Weigh what is left after trimming and divide by what you bought. That is the yield. Then:

Measure yield yourself for the ingredients that matter most in your menu. A few weighings are enough to stop guessing.

Step 3: divide by portions

Add up the corrected ingredient costs and divide by the number of portions the recipe really produces. Count portions at the size you actually serve, not the size the recipe card says.

Step 4: add what is easy to forget

• Oil, salt, stock and garnish. Small per dish, large over a year.
• Packaging and disposables for drop-off orders.
• Extra food for a buffet, where portions are not controlled.
• Tasting portions and food for staff on long events.

Food cost percentage

Once you know the cost per portion, food cost percentage tells you how much of the price goes to ingredients:

Johnson & Wales University's guide to menu pricing says a profitable restaurant averages a food cost of 28 to 35%. Treat that as a restaurant figure, not a catering one. A drop-off tray and a fully staffed wedding have very different labour costs, so the food share of the price that works for you can be quite different. Use the percentage to spot dishes that drift, and set your prices with the full cost method in our catering pricing guide.

Keep it up to date

Re-cost your best sellers whenever a big invoice changes. If your menu prices live in a spreadsheet and your quotes in Word, every change has to be made twice. In CaterWay your menu and prices live in one place, and every new quote uses the current price.