Decreasefood cost

Romain is the Director and Co-founder of La Brigade De Véro. Each week they put together a balanced menu, which is then delivered to their customers. Thanks to Melba, Romain has managed to improve the management of his kitchen by bringing its food cost ratio down from 40 to 28% in a few months. Incredible, isn't it?

Romain is the Director and Co-founder of La Brigade De Véro. Each week they put together a balanced menu, which is then delivered to their customers. Thanks to Melba, Romain has managed to improve the management of his kitchen by bringing its food cost ratio down from 40 to 28% in a few months. Incredible, isn't it?

Food costing software only works if the costs stay current

Everyone can cost a recipe once: the card, the weights, today's prices. What never holds is what comes after — supplier prices move, recipes evolve, real yields drift from theory, and six months later the spreadsheet shows costs nobody trusts. The food costing problem is not the calculation; it is keeping it true.

That is what software changes: every dish's plate cost is recalculated continuously from recipe cards and the purchase prices in force, yields and trim included. The day butter or beef jumps ten percent, you know which dishes take the hit, by how much, and what it does to margin — that day, not at month end.

What a living plate cost enables

• Arbitrating supplier increases — reformulate, change grade, reprice or absorb: four possible answers, all of which require knowing the real cost of the dish concerned.
• Pricing the menu on facts — the markup factor stops being house tradition and becomes a per-dish decision.
• Quoting before committing — a banquet quote, a daily special, a new menu: every commitment starts from an observed cost, not an after-service estimate.

Costing a dish: the method in four steps

One: the recipe card, with net weights and measured yields per ingredient. Two: current purchase prices, tied to supplier references. Three: losses — cooking, trim, breakage — measured on your runs, not estimated. Four: automatic updating, which separates an opening-day calculation from a management tool. The first three happen once; the fourth is why the software exists.

Food cost percentage: actual, not theoretical

Theoretical food cost — the recipe's — says what the menu should cost. Actual food cost includes what theory ignores: waste, comps, generous portions, stock variances. The gap between the two is the most telling management number in a kitchen: small and stable, all is well; widening, something leaks — and the family-level detail says where.

Computing it means connecting sales, stock and recipes in one tool: sales give theoretical consumption, the count gives reality, and the difference becomes readable service after service.

Beverage cost follows the same law

A good beverage cost percentage is usually tighter than food — pours are measured, loss should be low — which is precisely why drift shows fast: over-pouring, unrecorded comps, breakage. Tracking beverage cost separately from food, by category, turns the bar from a black box into a margin line.

A weekly routine beats a monthly report

Food cost is defended weekly, not observed monthly. Thirty minutes on the same numbers every week: the five highest-contribution dishes — are they being pushed? — the dishes whose ratio moved — supplier increase or portion drift? — and the theoretical-versus-actual gap by family — where is it leaking? Three readings, three possible decisions, every week.

Frequently asked questions about food costing

Do we need every recipe costed to start?

No: the twenty or thirty dishes carrying the volume produce a credible food cost and the first decisions. The reference fills in afterwards, driven by use.

Does the calculation include yields and trim?

Yes — gross weight, net weight, cooking loss: yield is measured on your real runs and applied wherever the ingredient appears. That is what separates a plate cost from a catalogue price.

How often do costs update?

Whenever a supplier price or a recipe changes, automatically, including through intermediate preparations. No recalculation campaigns, no spreadsheet to reopen.

How is this different from a POS report?

A POS reports what was sold and for how much. Food costing says what it cost to make — and the two together give margin. Melba connects to the POS in place; it does not replace it.

What is a good food cost percentage?

There is no universal target: a pizzeria, a fine-dining room and a steakhouse live on very different ratios, and one venue carries families at 20 % and others at 40 %. The useful number is not an absolute benchmark — it is your gap, theoretical versus actual, and this week versus the last ones.

Does it work across several sites?

Yes: the same ratio definitions everywhere, costs per site — purchase prices differ — and comparisons in gaps rather than absolutes, through multi-site management.