The average food cost says nothing. The dish does
RestoAudit costs every dish on this week's purchase prices and shows which dish went past its target and because of which ingredient. Not at month end, when the prices are already in the report, but on the day the raw material went up.
Food cost is calculated once a month while raw materials move every week
Six places where food cost lies - and we worked through all six by hand for ten years.
The average hides the bar
Kitchen 29%, bar 37% - together «29.4% and all is well». The average swallows a gap of 8.5 pp.
Costed on last month's prices
The cost is built on old purchase prices, so a price rise shows up a month after it happened.
Dishes with no recipe
Bought-in drinks, packaging and deposits enter turnover at zero cost and pull the average food cost down.
Recipe priced only in part
A dish has 14 priced ingredients out of 15 - it looks better than it is and lands on no problem list.
The menu price has not moved in years
Raw material went up, the price stayed - the margin left quietly, because nobody put those two facts side by side.
Percentages instead of money
A dish at 49% food cost on 300 € of turnover gets looked at before one at 31% on 5 000 €. The priority is inverted.
Five checks in every dish
The calculation runs on Syrve recipes and prices from your invoices. The norm is yours: we compare the dish with itself a month ago and with the target you set.
You know which dish to reprice, which to re-cost, and which to leave alone.
Fresh prices
The cost is recalculated on the latest deliveries, not on the previous period.
Kitchen and bar apart
Each section with its own food cost and its own share of turnover - the average hides nothing any more.
Broken down by recipe
The rise is split across ingredients: you see which line gave how much per portion.
Price against cost
A separate list: the menu price held, the cost rose. That is the quiet margin leak.
Completeness of the calculation
Dishes with no recipe and with partial pricing are flagged and counted, not dropped from the average.
Not «food cost is up», but which ingredient and by how much
The dish cost is broken down by recipe lines. You see that half of the rise came from the rice - and that in purchasing this is 118 € a month, while in this dish it is 10.26 €: the rest went into other items.
The dish is compared with itself a month ago and with the target you set. Not with an industry benchmark.
The deviation is multiplied by portions sold. The finance director sees a sum, not a percentage.
From the dish card straight into the purchasing signal: the same rice costs 118 € a month across all dishes.
The rice added +0.019 € per portion - half of the rise. Across 540 portions that is 10.26 € a month on this dish.
Sorted by money, not by percentage
A dish at 49% food cost on 300 € of turnover matters less than one at 31% on 5 000 €. The list takes that into account.
What the finance director sees over a month
Not «food cost 29.4%», but where the margin came from and what holds it.
Food cost is standing still - and that is the answer: the rise in cost was absorbed by turnover, not passed into prices. The price list was not touched once this month.
What is left out of the calculation - and we say so
An average food cost is easy to improve by quietly dropping the awkward items. We show them on a separate line - otherwise the number cannot be trusted.
No target food cost is set. Until there is one, a dish can only be compared with its neighbours on the menu and with itself a month ago, but not with a norm. It takes a minute to set in the settings.