Free tool
What does this dish really make you?
Food cost percentage, gross profit and the price that hits your target GP, worked out properly with VAT stripped first. Dish by dish, in your browser, free.
Your GP sheet
Type each dish with its menu price and what the ingredients and packaging cost you. You get the food cost percentage, the gross profit, and what the dish would need to sell for to hit your target GP. Nothing is stored on our servers and there is no sign-up.
Figures are ex VAT: the 20% on hot takeaway food is stripped out before anything is calculated.
33%
Average food cost
67%
Average gross profit
1
Dish below 70% target
Lamb doner and chips
£8.50 on the menu, costs you £2.60
Food cost
37%
of £7.08 net
Gross profit
£4.48
per dish sold
GP percentage
63%
target is 70%
Price for 70% GP
£10.95
£2.45 more
Margherita 12"
£10.00 on the menu, costs you £2.40
Food cost
29%
of £8.33 net
Gross profit
£5.93
per dish sold
GP percentage
71%
hits your target
Price for 70% GP
£9.95
already there
Food cost and GP are calculated on net revenue: the menu price with VAT removed when you are registered, because the VAT on a hot takeaway sale belongs to HMRC, not to you. Ingredient costs are entered as you pay them. Labour, rent, energy and delivery are not in these figures: GP is what those still have to come out of.
Want a second pair of eyes on these margins? Free callback.
Commission eats GP too. See what the platforms cost you a year with the savings calculator.
The VAT step most costings skip
Say a doner and chips sells at £8.50 and the ingredients and box cost £2.60. The quick sum says £5.90 profit, a 69% GP, job done. But for a VAT registered shop, £1.42 of that ticket is VAT on its way to HMRC. The real net price is £7.08, the real gross profit is £4.48, and the real GP is 63%. Every dish on the menu looks a sixth better than it is until VAT comes out first.
That gap decides whether a menu works. Six points of GP on a shop doing a few thousand pounds a week is the difference between a wage and a worry. The calculator above strips VAT before it computes anything, and then answers the useful question: not just what the margin is, but what the price would need to be to hit the margin you want.
Once your own menu stacks up, the next leak is the channel. Commission comes off the customer price, so a platform taking a cut of every order eats the GP you just protected. The menu markup calculator shows what each dish must sell for on Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats to keep the money the same, and the commission savings calculator turns your weekly order count into the annual figure.
Food cost against GP at a glance
| Food cost | GP | Multiply cost by |
|---|---|---|
| 25% | 75% | 4.0 |
| 28% | 72% | 3.6 |
| 30% | 70% | 3.3 |
| 33% | 67% | 3.0 |
| 35% | 65% | 2.9 |
| 40% | 60% | 2.5 |
The multiplier gives the net selling price: cost divided by (1 minus target GP). Add VAT on top for the menu price if you are registered, which is what the calculator above does automatically.
What to do with the number
- Cost the top ten sellers first. Eighty percent of your food cost sits in a handful of dishes. Get those right before you touch the rest of the menu.
- Reprice the outliers, not everything. A dish five points under target usually needs 40p or 50p, not a new menu. The rounding options above keep the new price looking like a menu price.
- Recost when invoices move. Chicken, cheese and oil prices drift. A costing from last winter is a guess, not a number.
- Protect the margin on every channel. A 70% GP on your own menu is not 70% after a platform takes its cut. Direct orders through your own app on a flat monthly plan keep the GP you worked for, and the setup runs alongside the platforms rather than instead of them.
There are cuisine specific walkthroughs for kebab shops, pizzerias and Chinese takeaways, and a longer piece on cutting delivery app commission for the strategy side of protecting margin.
Food cost questions.
The sums owners ask about before they reprice a menu.
Divide what the ingredients and packaging cost you by what you sell the dish for net of VAT, then multiply by 100. A dish that costs £2.60 to make and sells at £8.50 with VAT inside has a net price of £7.08 for a VAT registered shop, so the food cost is about 37%. The calculator on this page does the VAT step for you, which is where most quick sums go wrong.
Most UK takeaways and restaurants price towards a gross profit of 65% to 75% of net revenue, which is a food cost of 25% to 35%. Wet items and sides usually run higher GP, proteins lower. The target that matters is the one that still covers your labour, rent, energy and delivery after the kitchen is paid for, so treat 70% as a starting point, not a law.
After. If you are VAT registered, the 20% VAT inside a hot takeaway sale belongs to HMRC, so gross profit has to be calculated on the price with VAT stripped out. Working GP on the VAT inclusive price flatters every dish by a sixth and is the most common costing mistake in the trade. The calculator has a toggle for shops under the registration threshold.
Every ingredient at the price you actually pay, plus the packaging the dish leaves in: container, lid, bag, napkin, sauce pot. Do not include labour, rent or energy; those come out of gross profit, they do not belong in food cost. If a dish shares prep, cost the portion, not the batch.
Yes, and it is usually the biggest single leak. Commission is charged on the price the customer pays, so a platform taking a quarter to a third of the ticket can take your effective GP below the level that covers wages. The menu markup calculator on this site shows what each dish must sell for on Just Eat, Deliveroo and Uber Eats to protect the margin you set here.
No. The calculator runs entirely in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere. Your dish list is saved on your own device so it is still there next time you open the page. The callback form is optional.
Keep the margin you just worked out.
Your own branded ordering app, a flat monthly fee, and no marketplace commission on any order.