Food cost percentage: the one number every owner should know by heart

If you only track one number in your restaurant, make it food cost percentage. It tells you, in a single figure, whether your menu is priced right and your kitchen is running tight.

The formula

Food cost % = (cost of ingredients used ÷ food sales) × 100. Use the same period for both — a week or a month. "Ingredients used" is opening stock + purchases − closing stock, not just what you bought.

What's a good number?

Full-service restaurants in Canada typically land between 28% and 35%. Quick-service and cafés can run 25–30%. Fine dining is often higher because of protein and produce quality. If you're above 38%, something is wrong: pricing, portions, waste, or theft.

Why the number moves

• Supplier prices creep up quietly. A 10% rise on chicken barely registers per invoice but moves your percentage by a full point.
• Portion drift. Cooks get generous. A "150 g" portion becomes 180 g in a busy service.
• Waste and spoilage. Over-ordering produce that goes off by Thursday.
• Menu mix. If your best-seller is also your lowest-margin dish, the percentage rises as you get busier.

Getting it down without cutting quality

1. Cost every recipe once, properly. Enter it into inventory with the recipe attached, so the system does the math every time you sell a plate.
2. Count stock weekly, on the same day, same person. Consistency matters more than precision.
3. Look at dish-level margin, not just the average. Move high-margin items to the top of the menu and into Aria's suggestions.
4. Set low-stock alerts so you order what you'll use, not what you're afraid of running out of.
5. Re-price quarterly. Small, regular increases are invisible; a 15% jump once a year is not.

Once inventory and recipes live in the same system as your sales, food cost stops being a monthly spreadsheet and becomes a live number on the dashboard. That's when it starts getting better.

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