I am a personal chef expanding into catering. I need a good program to help with calculating food costs. Any suggestions? Pros/Cons?
Thanks!
Thanks!
Thanks for your patience! This helps!I'm curious why you need a program? It's a very simple process to figure out food cost.
Here's an example and bear with me on the prices because i'm making them up.
Grilled Strip Steak with sauteed mushrooms and onions for $27
Let's say the steak you get is $15 a pound and you buy a ten pound strip. That's 10x15= $150 strip
You have 160 oz of steak and it cost $150...so 150/160 will get you $0.94 per oz
You serve a 12 oz steak. So 12x0.94= $11.28 for your steak
The shittake mushrooms you buy are $20 a case and you get 10 pounds per case
You have 160 oz of mushrooms and it cost $20...so 20/160 will get you $0.13 per oz
You serve 4 oz mushrooms. So 4x0.13= $0.52 for your mushrooms
The onions you buy are $9 per bag and you get 50 pounds per case
You have 800 oz of onions but after peeling you can only use 700 oz and it cost $9...so 9/700 will get you $0.02 per oz
You serve 4 oz mushrooms. So 4x0.02= $0.08 for your onions
You use 1 oz of butter to saute the mushrooms and onions together.
Butter is $4 a pound so 4/16= $0.25 an ounce
You use 1 oz so 1x0.25= $0.25
Salt is always said to be $0.10 as is pepper so that's an extra $0.20 per dish
So you add all the totals for the cost of the food
11.28+0.52+0.08+0.25+0.20= $12.25
For the Food cost % you take what you pay for the ingredients divided by what it's sold for.
12.25/27= 45%
That may see like a high food cost but it's most likely close to a steak entree. Plus you'll be making $14.75 for every steak you sell.
So you're catering? You cater a party for 50 steaks and you spend 16 hours preparing the food.
50x14.75= $737.50
737.50/16= 46.01 an hour...not too bad!!!
I know there's a thousnad other things to consider other than simply the ingredients, ie gas, water, elecricity, waste, advertisements, accidents, the list goes on. But you were simply asking for food cost. There's the longest possible answer