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Free Restaurant Food-Cost Calculator (Excel) — menu costing & margins

Most kitchens price by feel and quietly lose money on their most popular dish. This free calculator does the sums: list your ingredient costs, build each recipe, set the menu price, and the food cost, gross profit, food-cost % and margin work themselves out.

Get it — KES 100 · Excel (.xlsx) ↓Pay once via M-Pesa (Kenya) · yours to keep · opens in Excel or Google Sheets

What's inside

  • Cost each recipe automatically from your ingredient prices
  • Food cost, gross profit, food-cost % and margin per dish
  • Dishes over 35% food cost flagged in red
  • Dashboard: average food-cost %, margin, dishes over target
  • Formulas locked; only the yellow cells accept typing

The tabs

  • Start Here (guide)
  • Ingredients
  • Menu
  • Recipes
  • Dashboard

Yellow cells only. You type in the yellow cells; the rest are locked formulas. Gridlines are off and it prints clean on A4.

Enter each ingredient once with its cost per unit on the Ingredients tab. On the Recipes tab, list what goes into each dish and how much — every line's cost is looked up for you. Then on the Menu tab, set each dish's price and its food cost, profit, food-cost % and margin appear. Dishes whose food cost climbs above 35% of the price are flagged in red, because that's usually where the margin quietly disappears.

The Dashboard shows your average food-cost % and margin across the menu and how many dishes are over the 35% line — the ones to reprice, re-portion or re-cost. Yellow cells for typing; the costing is locked formulas. Opens in Excel or Google Sheets.

Do it online instead

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Frequently asked questions

What food-cost percentage should I aim for?

Many kitchens aim to keep food cost under about 35% of the menu price, leaving room for rent, wages and profit. This sheet flags any dish above that line so you can act — but set your own target if your model differs.

How does it cost a recipe?

You enter each ingredient's cost per unit once. For each dish you list the ingredients and quantities, and the sheet multiplies quantity by unit cost and adds them up — so the dish cost updates the moment an ingredient price changes.

Does it work in Google Sheets?

Yes — upload the .xlsx to Google Drive and open it with Google Sheets.