Food Cost + Menu Engineering GuideRecipe costing, menu pricing and menu profitability — with sales tax handled right and third-party delivery in the math

No, but they work together. The Food Cost Kit Pro is 13 Excel templates to cost recipes for different types of venue; this guide is the method and the decision: what price to charge, which method to use and what to do with each dish. The guide includes its own recipe cost card and yield test, so you can work without the kit. If you have both, only those two basic tools overlap (the kit also has a recipe cost card and a yield test) and everything else is different.

Lists of "7 methods" change from one source to the next, so this guide doesn't sell you a number. It works with four pricing methods: cost factor (food cost % markup), target contribution margin in dollars, local market price and perceived value, and it shows when each one fits and why the cost factor breaks on high-cost dishes. Then it checks the whole menu with four menu engineering methods: Kasavana & Smith, Miller, Pavesic and Goal Value.

Start with a recipe cost card for every dish: the plate cost comes from the as-purchased quantity, with trim loss included. Choose the pricing method that fits each dish (cost factor, target margin, market price or perceived value) and check the food cost % on the pre-tax price. Then look at the menu as a whole with menu engineering, popularity against contribution margin within each category, and adjust takeout and delivery prices for commission and packaging. The guide walks a 20-dish example menu through every step, and the Menu Pricing Calculator puts the four methods side by side.

For a dish, food cost % = plate cost ÷ menu price before tax. For a period, use what you actually used: beginning inventory + purchases − ending inventory, divided by net food sales. The guide covers both, theoretical food cost from your cost cards and actual food cost from your inventory, and the four causes of the gap between them.

It's a rule of thumb about keeping your biggest costs near 30% of sales, and sources define it in different ways, so the guide doesn't build on it. What it uses is the cost structure behind the idea: product around 30% of net sales and labor between 30% and 35% for full service, read together as prime cost. The prime cost dashboard ships with a 65% target for full service and 55% for counter service, both in editable cells, and the guide sets them next to the widely quoted US rule of thumb of 60% at most.

Yes. It's the US edition, with notes for the UK, Canada and Australia wherever the rules differ. Every workbook keeps its tax rate in editable cells, 0% by default because US menu prices are pre-tax: enter 20% for UK VAT or 10% for Australian GST to see the printed price including tax; in Canada you price before GST/HST, as in the US. The guide explains when the tax on your purchases is a cost (in the US, or if you're not registered) and when you reclaim it (registered for VAT or GST/HST), and gives GP %, the figure UK kitchens use, next to food cost %. Weights are in lb and oz, and bottles stay in milliliters (750 ml), as on the label. Every English edition also includes the US · UK · Canada · Australia Equivalents Guide, a bonus with the local terms, taxes, food safety and staff rules side by side.

More than it seems. Food cost % is calculated on net sales, before tax, never on what the guest pays. In the US sales tax is added on the bill, so the menu price is already net; in the UK and Australia the printed price includes VAT or GST, so you take it out first (UK: printed price ÷ 1.20). On the cost side, sales tax you pay on supplies in the US is a cost, while a business registered for VAT or GST/HST reclaims it, so it stays out of the plate cost. Get it wrong and your food cost moves by several points, and you end up repricing the wrong dish.

It depends on the country and the channel. In the UK, food and drink consumed on the premises, alcohol included, pay the same 20% standard rate, while takeaway splits hot food at 20% from most cold food at zero (soft drinks, confectionery and crisps excluded). In the US the rate depends on your state and city, and some add a meals tax. That is why the beverage and multichannel workbooks carry a tax matrix of nine cells, by channel and product type, all at 0% by default.

Add the packaging for each order to the plate cost and divide by what you actually take in: the price minus the platform commission. The multichannel simulator does it for every dish, tells you the pre-tax price you would need to hit your target and whether that price fits under the ceiling price your market accepts.

Because the cost structure is nothing alike: there's no butchering trim loss, you decide the unit of sale (by the glass or by the bottle) and turnover is different. The guide gives target ranges by category with their source and puts them in editable cells of the beverage workbook, so you compare your bar with the right reference and not with a generic number.

Not on a blind calendar but on triggers: a supplier price change, a change of season or pack size, a change of recipe or portion, plus a periodic review of the whole menu. Chapter 18 sets the protocol and shows where to look for prices, so you see increases coming instead of finding out from the invoice.

It's the most cited, not the only one, and on its own it falls short: it crosses popularity with contribution margin and ignores food cost %. The guide does it properly and adds Miller, Pavesic and Goal Value (Hayes & Huffman) on the same menu, with a sheet that flags where they disagree. That's usually where the decisions that matter are.

It's product cost plus labor cost, including employer payroll taxes and benefits, over net sales. It matters because those are the two lines your operation actually moves, and because a great food cost can be propped up by extra prep hours that eat the margin. The dashboard shows them together month by month, with the target for your type of business in an editable cell.

Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Apple Numbers. The workbooks are built on purpose without functions that break compatibility between programs, and they keep their calculated values saved inside the file, so they also display correctly on a phone and in viewers that don't recalculate.

The price is $59 USD, a one-time payment. At checkout, Stripe can show the amount in your local currency (for example GBP, EUR, CAD or AUD) and converts it for you. The workbooks have no currency symbol: you type amounts in your own currency.

No subscription: you pay once and get lifetime access to the online dashboard. When we improve a tool or update the guide, you download the new version at no extra cost, and the dashboard shows the change history of every version.

Yes. A full 30-day guarantee. If the guide doesn't meet your expectations, we'll refund 100% with no questions asked.