Food Cost & Inventory Waste Calculator
See exactly where money leaks through food cost, waste, spoilage, overstock, and shrinkage — and how much you could save by tightening inventory control.
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Your numbers
Use one typical month. Estimates are fine.
Food, beverage, and everything else
Spoilage, over-prep, trim, mistakes
Excess stock beyond what you need
Your food cost is 36.5%, which is 6.5 points above your 30.0% target. Closing that gap on $52,000 of food sales is worth about $3,400 per month.
Waste and spoilage are running at 2.9% of sales ($1,500/mo). Waste appears to be a major profit leak — tighten prep forecasting, rotation, and portioning.
Overstock is 27.3% of your on-hand inventory. Your inventory may be overstocked, tying up cash and driving spoilage.
Estimated theft/shrinkage is 1.5% of sales. Audit receiving, voids, and comps, and lock down high-value stock.
You may benefit from inventory software or tighter weekly counting to bring these numbers under control.
Potential savings
If you reduced waste and shrinkage by 20%, you would add $5,520 a year to your bottom line.
Stop the margin leak
Spreadsheets only take you so far. Compare the top restaurant inventory platforms designed to tighten pars, track waste, and lower food cost.
Who this calculator is for
Any operator who wants to see, in dollars, where food cost and waste are leaking margin — before blaming the menu. It works for a single cafe running one monthly snapshot or a multi-unit group comparing sites.
A 40-seat cafe doing $30k/month in food sales on $9.6k of purchases lands near 32% food cost — a few points high, usually a counting-and-invoicing fix, not a price hike.
A truck with almost no storage still loses money to over-prep on slow days; logging one week of waste turns that into a real monthly dollar figure.
A kitchen carrying $12k of inventory that only turns twice a month is tying up cash and inviting the spoilage this number makes visible.
Run the same inputs per site to find the one location dragging the group average down.
Examples are illustrative, not tested results — plug in your own numbers above.
What to do with your result
- 1Compare it to your target
If you're above roughly 30–33% food cost (it varies by concept), the gap is usually count cadence and invoice capture — not menu pricing.
- 2Fix the biggest leak first
Tighter counts and variance tracking come from the best restaurant inventory software, or start free with our restaurant inventory spreadsheet template.
- 3Re-run it monthly
One month is a snapshot; the trend is the signal. Check the same numbers next month before making big changes.
Keep researching
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a good food cost percentage for a restaurant?
Most restaurants target a food cost percentage between 28% and 35% of food sales. Full-service restaurants often sit around 28-32%, while bars and quick-service concepts vary more. The right number depends on your concept, menu mix, and pricing — the goal is a consistent figure at or below the target you set for your business.
How do I calculate food cost percentage?
Food cost percentage = Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) divided by food sales, multiplied by 100. COGS = beginning inventory + purchases - ending inventory. For example, if your COGS is $19,000 and food sales are $52,000, your food cost percentage is about 36.5%.
How do I calculate restaurant inventory waste?
Estimate the dollar value of food thrown away due to spoilage, over-prep, and trim, then add losses from theft and shrinkage. Expressed as a percentage of sales, anything consistently above 4-5% signals a meaningful profit leak. Weekly counts and a simple waste log make this number far more accurate.
How much money can a restaurant save by reducing food waste?
If a restaurant loses $2,300 a month to waste and shrinkage, cutting that by 20% saves about $460 a month, or roughly $5,500 a year — straight to the bottom line. Because these losses repeat every month, even small percentage reductions compound quickly.
When should a restaurant stop using spreadsheets and use inventory software?
Spreadsheets work well for a single small location with a simple menu. Once you run multiple locations, manage many SKUs and recipes, need real-time variance and theoretical-vs-actual food cost, or spend hours each week on manual counts, dedicated inventory software usually pays for itself in reduced waste and labor.