Guides

Short, worked explanations of the numbers behind a profitable meal.

• How to calculate the cost of a meal

  A plain-English method for working out what one meal really costs you to make — ingredients, packaging and the small costs most people forget.

  6 min read

• How to calculate recipe cost

  Learn how to cost a recipe from supplier prices, handle unit conversions, and turn a batch cost into a cost per portion.

  5 min read

• How to calculate food cost per serving

  Work out food cost per serving from a batch recipe, and see why portion control matters as much as ingredient prices.

  4 min read

• How to price meal prep for profit

  A practical approach to pricing meal-prep meals: start from direct cost, pick a target margin, then sanity-check against what customers will pay.

  6 min read

• How much profit should you make on a meal?

  What a healthy margin looks like for restaurants, caterers and meal-prep sellers — and why the right number depends on your other costs.

  5 min read

• Food cost percentage explained

  What food cost percentage means, how to calculate it, and how it relates to margin — with a worked example.

  4 min read

• How packaging changes meal margins

  Containers, lids, labels and bags are a per-meal cost. See how much margin they take, with a worked example and the mistake most sellers make.

  4 min read

• How delivery fees affect meal profit

  Delivery-app commissions and payment fees are a percentage of the price, not the cost. Here's how to work out what a delivered meal really earns.

  5 min read