Pricing out a dish by its ingredients — each ingredient tied to a purchased SKU and its cost — to know the true cost of every plate.
Recipe Costing (SKU / Plate Cost)
Pricing out a dish by its ingredients — each ingredient tied to a purchased SKU and its cost — to know the true cost of every plate.
Recipe costing is building the cost of a menu item from its ingredients: every component is tied to a purchased SKU (stock-keeping unit) at its current invoice price, scaled to the portion the recipe uses. Sum those and you have the plate cost — the true cost to produce one order of that dish.
Plate cost is the input that makes food cost percentage and menu engineering possible, because it turns "a burger" into a number that moves when a supplier raises the price of beef.
- SKU-level tie-in: linking recipes to purchased SKUs means a price change on an invoice automatically re-costs every dish that uses it.
- Theoretical vs. actual: recipe costing gives the theoretical (ideal) food cost; comparing it to actual usage exposes waste, over-portioning, and shrinkage.
Inventory and costing platforms such as MarginEdge and MarketMan automate recipe costing by reading invoices so plate costs update as prices change.