How to Price a Burger: Cost the Plate at Today's Beef Price, Then Set the Menu Price

The arithmetic is short. The hard part is the beef price, which has risen much faster than menu prices for two years. Start there, then build the plate.

What beef costs now

The two series measure different things. BLS records what shoppers pay at the store for ground beef in general; USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service reports what packers charge for bulk 81% lean ground beef at the plant, before freight, a distributor's margin or patty forming. Neither is your invoice. But both rose far faster than menu prices: over the same two years, BLS's index of limited-service meal prices rose 6.5% and full-service meal prices 8.2%.

They also show how unstable the price is. Retail kept rising — up 13.3% in the first year and 9.6% in the second. Wholesale rose 24.3%, then fell back 9.8%, and in the weekly reports of the twelve months to October 2, 2026 its weighted average ran from $3.10 a pound (October 17, 2025) to $4.23 (July 2026). Supply has not recovered: USDA's January 2026 cattle count was 86.2 million head, slightly below 86.5 million a year earlier, with beef cows down 1%. USDA's Economic Research Service forecasts retail beef prices up 4.7% in 2027 and wholesale beef roughly flat, both with very wide ranges — the 2027 food price forecast shows how far such forecasts have missed. For the monthly BLS price, see ground beef prices.

Sources: BLS average price series APU0000703112 and CPI series for limited-service (CUUR0000SEFV02) and full-service (CUUR0000SEFV01) meals, August 2024–August 2026, read October 4, 2026; BLS published no October 2025 data. USDA AMS National Weekly Boxed Beef Cutout and Boxed Beef Cuts (LM_XB459), negotiated sales, ground beef 81%, weekly reports August 2024–October 2, 2026. USDA NASS Cattle, January 30, 2026.

Step 1: Cost the whole plate

Cost the patty on its raw weight, because raw is what you buy and weigh. USDA measured ground beef patties of 12–22% fat, cooked to 160°F with no added fat, at 69% of their raw weight when broiled or grilled and 73% when pan-broiled — four samples each — so a 6 oz raw patty serves about 4.1 to 4.4 oz. Do not divide by that yield again when the portion is weighed raw; that would charge the shrink twice. Yield matters when you compare blends: the cooking yield guide shows why 90/10 is cheaper per cooked pound than 80/20 only when its premium is under about 5.8%.

The small lines are where plate costs drift. Cost the toppings from what you actually trim and slice, the sauce from its batch recipe, and add a Q-factor for condiments and oil rather than leaving them out. The plate cost is the sum of every line on the plate, not the patty with a guess on top.

Step 2: Turn the plate cost into a price

A contribution rule works the other way round: decide what each burger must earn toward labor, rent and profit, then add it to the plate cost. If it must earn $9, the price is $3.63 + $9 = $12.63, and when beef moves, the price moves dollar for dollar instead of by a multiple. The market-price guide compares the two rules on a volatile item. Whichever you use, round to a price that fits the menu, then recompute the food cost at that price: at $13 this plate runs 27.9%.

Step 3: Test the price against beef moves

Write down the beef price the menu price was built on, and set a trigger to review it — for example, when your delivered price moves 50 cents a pound away from it. The wholesale swing above, $1.13 a pound within a year, would have crossed that trigger more than once.

What two years of beef prices did to a burger priced in 2024

Take the same burger in August 2024 with beef at $4.00 a pound: a $3.25 plate priced at $10.84 for a 30% food cost. Apply the two public beef changes to the patty, hold the rest of the plate flat, and raise the menu price in line with the BLS meal-price indexes. Holding the rest flat is close to what the public data show: over the same period BLS retail prices moved −1.9% for American cheese, −6.6% for white bread, −1.0% for tomatoes, −3.0% for iceberg lettuce and −3.0% for potatoes.

An unchanged price lost between 1.7 and 3.3 points of food cost. Raising prices with the national index roughly held the line if your beef tracked the wholesale market, but not if it tracked the retail one. Which happened to you is on your own invoices, which is the point: national series can bracket the problem, but only your delivered price can price the burger.

Price the extras on their own cost

Bacon is costed on its raw weight too: USDA's measured yield for baked bacon is 32%, so 1.5 oz raw serves about half an ounce. A double priced as "+$3" for a $1.875 patty earns about $1.13 on the extra beef, well below what the base burger earns. That may be a fine choice, but make it on purpose.

How much volume a price increase can cost

Published research measures whole categories, not one dish. A 2010 review in the American Journal of Public Health of US price studies found an average elasticity of 0.81 for food away from home — roughly an 8% drop in quantity for a 10% price rise — from 13 estimates ranging from 0.23 to 1.76. USDA Economic Research Service studies put limited-service or fast-food restaurants anywhere from −0.13 (not statistically significant) to −0.92, and full-service restaurants from −1.15 to −1.96, depending on the data and method. None of these is the response to your burger, which guests can swap for another dish on your menu or another restaurant down the street. Count your own units for four weeks before and after a change, as how to raise menu prices describes.

On delivery apps, commission comes off the price. At a 25% commission the $13 burger nets $9.75 and contributes $6.12 before packaging; it needs about $17.33 on the app to contribute what it does in the dining room. The delivery markup guide works through partial markups.