Ever notice how your kitchen staff's eyes glaze over during food cost discussions? They see €8.50 in ingredient costs but can't connect that to your actual profit margins. Your menu becomes the perfect teaching tool to transform abstract numbers into concrete understanding.
Choose your 3 most popular dishes
Start with the dishes your team makes most often. They know the ingredients by heart and see directly what each adjustment means. This makes the impact much clearer than abstract percentages.
💡 Example: Popular dishes
In a bistro, these are often:
- Steak with fries: sell 80x per week
- Pasta carbonara: sell 60x per week
- Caesar salad: sell 45x per week
These 3 dishes make up 70% of your revenue.
Calculate the exact ingredient costs
Take one dish and add up everything that goes into it. Also the butter on the plate, the parsley as garnish, and the oil used for cooking. Let your team watch while you do this.
💡 Example: Steak calculation
Steak for €32.00 on the menu:
- Entrecôte 250g: €7.20
- Fries 200g: €0.80
- Butter: €0.30
- Sauce: €0.70
- Garnish: €0.50
Total ingredients: €9.50
Food cost: €9.50 / €29.36 (excl. VAT) = 32.4%
⚠️ Note:
Always calculate using the menu price excluding VAT. €32.00 incl. 9% VAT = €29.36 excl. VAT. Otherwise your food cost will look lower than it actually is.
Show the team the impact
Show what happens if they give 20 grams extra meat, or an extra scoop of fries. Calculate how much that costs per week based on the number of portions they make. After managing kitchen operations for nearly a decade, I've seen how these small overages compound into massive losses.
💡 Example: Impact calculation
Extra 20g meat per steak:
- Extra cost: 20g × €28.80/kg = €0.58 per portion
- 80 portions per week = €46.40 per week
- Per year: €2,413 extra costs
"That extra 20 grams costs us €2,400 per year on this one dish."
Use visual aids
Hang a simple poster in the kitchen with your 3 main dishes, their food cost, and what "over-portioning" costs. Use colors: green for good food cost, orange for on the high side, red for too expensive.
- Green (under 30%): Good margin, keep it up
- Orange (30-35%): Watch portion size
- Red (above 35%): Loss-making, adjust immediately
Make it personal
Explain that food cost directly affects their wages and the future of the business. If food cost gets too high, cuts will need to be made. Show them that working precisely helps everyone.
💡 Example: Personal impact
"If we get our food cost from 35% to 30% on these 3 dishes:"
- Savings: 5% of €180,000 revenue = €9,000 per year
- That's room for a raise or better ingredients
- Or a team outing of €750 per month
Review and check regularly
Discuss your top sellers' food cost briefly each month. Have there been price increases from suppliers? Do menu prices need to go up? Keep the team involved in these decisions.
Tools like KitchenNmbrs can do these calculations automatically and show immediately when a dish becomes too expensive due to supplier price increases.
How do you make food cost visible to your team? (step by step)
Select your 3 most popular dishes
Choose the dishes your team makes most often and that generate the most revenue. These are usually 70% of your total sales and therefore most important to monitor carefully.
Calculate the exact costs together
Go through each ingredient with your team and add everything up: main product, sides, sauces, oil, butter. Let them watch so they see where the costs are and how you arrive at the total ingredient costs.
Calculate the food cost percentage
Divide the ingredient costs by the selling price excluding VAT and multiply by 100. Explain why you calculate excluding VAT and what a healthy food cost is (usually 28-35% for restaurants).
Show the impact of deviations
Calculate what 20 grams extra meat or an extra scoop of fries per week costs. Multiply by the number of portions per week to show the total impact. This makes abstract thinking concrete.
Hang an overview in the kitchen
Create a simple poster with your 3 main dishes, their food cost percentage, and use colors (green/orange/red) to see at a glance which dishes are doing well and which need attention.
✨ Pro tip
Create laminated reference cards showing your 3 bestsellers' exact portion weights and their monthly cost impact. Update these cards every quarter so your team always has current numbers at their fingertips during service.
Calculate this yourself?
In the KitchenNmbrs app you can do this in just a few clicks. 7 days free, no credit card.
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Frequently asked questions
How often should I discuss food cost with my team?
Discuss it briefly each month during a team meeting. Check if there have been price increases from suppliers and whether portion size is still correct. This keeps everyone aware of how their work impacts profitability.
What if my team doesn't understand the food cost figures?
Start with one concrete example and calculate step by step what each ingredient costs. Use round numbers and show what it means in euros per week instead of percentages. That's much easier to understand.
Should I discuss all dishes or just the popular ones?
Start with your 3-5 most popular dishes. These make up 70-80% of your revenue, so that's where the biggest impact is. Once the team understands this, you can slowly add other dishes to the discussion.
How do I prevent the team from feeling monitored?
Explain that it's not about control, but about making sure the business stays healthy together. Show that good food cost creates room for raises, better ingredients, or fun team outings. Make it a shared goal.
What if the food cost comes out higher than expected?
Don't immediately blame the team. First check if suppliers have raised prices, if recipes are still correct, or if portion size has changed. Often it's due to external factors, not the kitchen team.
How do I handle seasonal price fluctuations in my examples?
Update your calculations quarterly and communicate changes to your team. Use average costs over 3-month periods rather than daily prices. This prevents constant confusion while keeping examples realistic.
Should I include labor costs in these team discussions?
Focus purely on ingredient costs for these examples. Adding labor costs confuses the message and makes calculations too complex for daily kitchen use. Keep labor discussions separate from portion control training.
⚠️ EU Regulation 1169/2011 — Allergen Information — https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2011/1169/oj
The allergen information on this page is based on EU Regulation 1169/2011. Recipes and ingredients may vary by supplier. Always verify current allergen information with your supplier and communicate this correctly to your guests. KitchenNmbrs is not liable for allergic reactions.
In the UK, the FSA enforces allergen regulations under the Food Information Regulations 2014.
📚 Sources consulted
- EU Verordening 852/2004 — Levensmiddelenhygiëne (2004) — Official source
- EU Verordening 853/2004 — Hygiënevoorschriften voor levensmiddelen van dierlijke oorsprong (2004) — Official source
- EU Verordening 1169/2011 — Voedselinformatie aan consumenten (2011) — Official source
- NVWA — Hygiënecode voor de horeca (2024) — Official source
- NVWA — Allergenen in voedsel (2024) — Official source
- Codex Alimentarius — International Food Standards (2024) — Official source
- FSA — Safer food, better business (HACCP) (2024) — Official source
- BVL — Lebensmittelhygiene (HACCP) (2024) — Official source
- Warenwetbesluit Bereiding en behandeling van levensmiddelen (2024) — Official source
- WHO — Foodborne diseases estimates (2024) — Official source
Food Standards Agency (FSA) — https://www.food.gov.uk
The HACCP standards shown in this application are for informational purposes only. KitchenNmbrs does not guarantee that displayed values are current or complete. Always consult the FSA or your local authority for the latest regulations.
Written by
Jeffrey Smit
Founder & CEO of KitchenNmbrs
Jeffrey Smit built KitchenNmbrs from 8 years of hands-on experience as kitchen manager at 1NUL8 Group in Rotterdam. His mission: give every restaurant owner control over food cost.
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