Plate cost
Also called: plate costing · dish cost
Plate cost is the total ingredient cost of one served portion — protein, starch, vegetable, sauce, garnish, and anything else that leaves the kitchen on that plate. It is built from edible-portion costs, not invoice prices, so trim and yield loss are already inside the number.
Formula
Plate cost = Σ (EP cost per unit × quantity per portion)
EP = edible portion. Using as-purchased price here is the most common costing error there is.
Worked example · Pan-seared salmon plate
- Salmon fillet, 6 oz at $14.80/lb EP
- $5.55
- Fingerling potatoes, 5 oz at $2.20/lb
- $0.69
- Asparagus, 4 oz at $3.90/lb EP
- $0.98
- Beurre blanc, 1.5 oz sub-recipe
- $0.71
- Herb garnish + lemon
- $0.22
- Butter, oil, seasoning (Q factor)
- $0.30
- Plate cost
- $8.45
At a $29 menu price this dish runs 29.1% food cost and contributes $20.55 per cover.
The four costs most recipe cards miss
- Yield loss. A whole salmon side yields roughly 70% usable fillet. Costing at the as-purchased price understates the plate by the full trim loss — see yield percentage.
- Sub-recipes. Stocks, sauces and compound butters have their own cost per ounce. Costing a sauce as "about fifty cents" is where a quarter-point of margin goes to die.
- The Q factor. Oil, butter, salt, pepper, and the bread service nobody rings in. Most kitchens add 2–5% of plate cost — see Q factor.
- Sides and garnish. If the ticket says the entrée comes with fries, the fries are part of the plate cost even though they have their own line on the prep list.
How often to rebuild it
A plate cost is a snapshot of supplier prices on the day you built it. Proteins and produce move weekly; dry goods move seasonally. Rebuild whenever an ingredient in the recipe moves more than about 5%, and re-verify the whole menu at least quarterly.
Should plate cost include labor?
No. Plate cost is ingredients only. Labor is tracked separately and combined with food cost as prime cost, because kitchen labor doesn't scale per plate the way ingredients do.
What about the free bread and butter?
Either fold it into the Q factor across all entrées, or cost it as a line on the plates that receive it. What you cannot do is leave it out — a $0.40 bread service at 200 covers a week is $4,160 a year.
Plate costs that rebuild themselves.
Photograph your menu and Marji costs every dish. When a supplier price changes, the plates that use it recost automatically and you get told which ones crossed your target.
Cost my menu →Run the numbers
Recipe cost calculator
The guide that works it through
Recipe Costing, Step by Step
How to cost a recipe properly: yield-adjusted ingredient costs, sub-recipes, the Q factor, and a full worked example from invoice to plate cost to menu price.
Related terms
Food cost percentage
The share of a dish's menu price consumed by the ingredients on the plate.
Cost per serving
The cost of one served unit of a batch item — a bowl of soup, a slice of pie, an ounce of sauce.
Sub-recipe
A recipe used as an ingredient in other recipes — stock, sauce, dough, compound butter.
Q factor
A per-plate allowance for the small unbilled items — oil, butter, salt, bread service — that never make it onto a recipe card.
Portion control
Keeping served portions equal to specced portions — the difference between the food cost you calculated and the one you get.