Free tool
Food cost calculator.
Enter your beginning inventory, purchases, ending inventory, and food sales to calculate COGS and food cost percentage. No signup, no email gate.
Total value of all stock at the start of the period
Invoices received during the period
Total value of stock at the end of the period
Revenue from food sales during the period
COGS
$0.00
Food cost %
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Status
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Formula: (Beginning + Purchases − Ending) ÷ Sales × 100. Industry-typical range is 28–35%. Above 35% usually signals waste, portioning issues, or price creep.
Want this calculated for you automatically?
Try Stockcount freeHow to calculate food cost percentage
Food cost % is the share of your food revenue that gets consumed by ingredient cost. It’s the single most important number in a restaurant’s kitchen P&L.
Food cost % = (Beginning Inventory + Purchases − Ending Inventory) ÷ Food Sales × 100
What the numbers mean
- Beginning inventory: the dollar value of every ingredient and beverage on your shelves at the start of the period (week, month, quarter).
- Purchases: every dollar you spent on food during the period — invoices from produce, protein, dairy, dry goods, beverage, and any cash purchases.
- Ending inventory: the dollar value of everything still on your shelves at the end of the period.
- Food sales: revenue from food only. Don’t include beverage, retail, or catering unless you’re calculating a combined number.
What’s a good food cost percentage?
Under 28%: strong margin. Common in cafés with high-margin beverages or concepts with deliberate premium pricing.
28–35%: typical industry range for full-service restaurants. Most profitable FSRs sit at the low end of this band.
Above 35%: too high. Usually means waste, theft, portioning issues, or price creep that hasn’t been passed through to the menu.
Why this number is wrong half the time
The formula is correct. The inputs are usually not. Beginning and ending inventory require an accurate count — most operators rush through counts or skip categories, which turns a real number into a confidence estimate. That’s the single biggest reason food cost drifts unnoticed.
Voice counting and automatic invoice parsing fix both inputs at the source — which is why Stockcount recalculates this number live instead of showing it to you once a month.
Stop calculating this by hand.
Stockcount tracks beginning inventory, purchases, and ending inventory continuously from voice counts and invoice scans. Your food cost % updates itself.