Food cost by cuisine
Food truck food cost percentage
A truck can carry a higher food cost than a dining room, but not because it escapes occupancy: commissary, fuel, permits and event fees take back most of what it saves on rent. The room comes from a smaller crew, and the trade only works if you know what it is.
This is the numbers page
Bands, one plate costed to the packaging, and the commodities that plate is exposed to. The argument — the occupancy-equivalent compared with a restaurant's, a booking evaluated end to end, and what two extra menu items really cost — is in Food Truck Costs: Where the Room for a Higher Food Cost Comes From, and nothing on this page repeats it.
The cost structure of a food truck
Planning conventions, not research findings — the ranges an operator budgets against. Use them to sanity-check your own arithmetic, never as evidence about the industry.
| Food cost | 28–36% |
|---|---|
| Labour | 22–28% |
| Prime cost target | 52–60% |
| Implied by the two bands above | 50–64% |
The target is 4 points tighter than the two bands added together, which is the real operating constraint: run both food and labour at the top of their ranges and a food truck misses its prime cost ceiling. One of the two has to sit below its high end all year, and which one is a strategy choice rather than an accident.
A truck buys in small quantities, often at retail-adjacent prices, and cannot hold enough stock to buy on deal, which pushes food cost up. It also lacks the prep space to break down primal cuts, so it buys further up the value chain. What it gets in return is a smaller crew: commissary, fuel, permits and event fees take back most of what it saves on rent, so the room for a higher food cost comes from labor.
One plate, costed line by line
Single serving in a boat, sold from a service window at an evening pitch. Line prices are inputs we chose — plausible mid-2026 wholesale figures, not quotes. Replace them with yours and every number below recalculates on the same arithmetic.
| Line | Portion | Cost | Share of plate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Skirt or flap steaktrackedWhole-muscle beef, not ground. Same cattle market, different cut — direction only. | 5 oz raw | $2.78 | 60% |
| Fries | 8 oz frozen | $0.68 | 15% |
| Shredded cheesetracked | 2 oz | $0.52 | 11% |
| Crema, pico, jalapeñotracked | per order | $0.38 | 8% |
| Boat, fork, napkins | 1 order | $0.31 | 7% |
| Plate cost | $4.67 | ||
Food cost
33.4%
$4.67 ÷ $14.00
Contribution margin
$9.33
per plate sold
Against the band
Inside the planning band.
band 28–36%
Inside the band and near the middle of it, which is where a truck item should sit. The beef is nearly three fifths of the plate — on a vehicle with no walk-in and no purchasing leverage, that concentration is the risk the whole format carries.
What the last 12 months did to this plate
A model, not a measurement: the lines above that map to a tracked commodity, repriced to what they would have cost a year ago if each had moved exactly with its Bureau of Labor Statistics series. Untagged lines are held flat. Real invoices move by more or less than a national average — this shows which lines carry the risk, not what you paid.
| Line | Tracked series | 12-month move | A year ago | Today |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Skirt or flap steak | Ground beef | +7.4% | $2.59 | $2.78 |
| Shredded cheese | Cheddar cheese | +1.4% | $0.51 | $0.52 |
| Crema, pico, jalapeño | Tomatoes | +4.3% | $0.36 | $0.38 |
| Whole plate, modelled | $4.46 | $4.67 | ||
| Food cost at $14.00 | 31.8% | 33.4% | ||
Tracked lines moved this plate by +$0.21 over twelve months — a cost you absorb on every one sold, unless the menu price moved with it. Series and methodology on the index methodology page.
Three traps specific to this format
1
Judging a truck by a restaurant's food cost target
A 32% food cost on a truck with a two-person crew can be healthier than a 26% in a dining room with a full kitchen and floor staff. The comparable number is prime cost plus occupancy, not food cost alone — and a truck that chases a lower percentage by cutting portions puts at risk the queue that made it work.
2
Menu creep in a space that cannot hold it
Every added item needs its own inventory in a vehicle with no storage, which means smaller buys, more waste and slower service at the window. The truck's throughput ceiling is set by the shortest menu it can get away with, and each addition lowers it.
3
Taking a booking without a break-even
Pitch fees, fuel, propane, staffing and a percentage-of-sales cut mean a booking can be busy and still lose money. Work out how many covers it takes to clear the fixed cost of showing up before you accept, using the break-even calculator.
What a food truck is exposed to
Of the ten commodities we track from Bureau of Labor Statistics data, these are the ones that decide this format's food cost. Prices are US city averages, monthly, and we publish nothing that is estimated rather than measured.
Ground beef
$6.79/lb
+7.4% over 12 months
Beef is the largest line on this plate, and the tracked series is the best public read on where the cattle market is going, even though your cut is not ground.
Ground beef prices and menu impact →Cheddar cheese
$6.13/lb
+1.4% over 12 months
On loaded fries, quesadillas, burgers and nearly everything else a truck sells at volume. Hand-portioned at speed in a moving vehicle, which is where the drift comes from.
Cheddar cheese prices and menu impact →Tomatoes
$1.99/lb
+4.3% over 12 months
Salsas and garnishes. The most seasonal input on the truck and the easiest to swap out when winter pricing arrives.
Tomatoes prices and menu impact →Our plate is a worked example. Yours is the one that pays the rent.
Photograph your menu to start: Marji reads the dishes and prices and drafts each recipe as an estimate for you to check. Add your supplier invoices and the dishes are costed with your own prices — the same line-by-line arithmetic as the table above, recomputed when an accepted price moves and tagged with the invoice it came from.