Food cost by cuisine
Food truck food cost percentage
Low rent buys a higher food cost, on purpose. A truck trades purchasing power and storage for the cheapest occupancy cost in the business, 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 full argument on the rent-for-food-cost trade, a booking evaluated end to end, and what two extra menu items really cost — is in Food Truck Costs: Why Low Rent Buys a Higher Food Cost, 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 — that alone puts several points on the food cost band. It also cannot hold enough prep space to break down primal cuts, so it buys further up the value chain. What it gets in return is an occupancy cost a fraction of a restaurant's, which is why a food cost that would sink a dining room is survivable here.
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 | +10.1% | $2.53 | $2.78 |
| Shredded cheese | Cheddar cheese | −5.0% | $0.55 | $0.52 |
| Crema, pico, jalapeño | Tomatoes | +11.7% | $0.34 | $0.38 |
| Whole plate, modelled | $4.40 | $4.67 | ||
| Food cost at $14.00 | 31.4% | 33.4% | ||
Tracked lines moved this plate by +$0.27 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 paying almost no rent can be healthier than a 26% in a dining room paying eight thousand a month. The comparable number is prime cost plus occupancy, not food cost alone — a truck that chases 28% by cutting portions usually loses 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
$6.89/lb
+10.1% over 12 months
Beef is the single largest line on most truck menus 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
$5.74/lb
−5.0% 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
$2.00/lb
+11.7% 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 and every dish comes back costed from your own supplier invoices — the same line-by-line arithmetic as the table above, recomputed the day a price moves, with the invoice line attached to the dish it changed.