Yield percentage

Keep trimming and cooking yields separate

In this hypothetical batch, you buy 10 lb for $4/lb, trim it to 8 lb, then cook it to 6 lb. The ingredient costs $40 throughout. These are teaching inputs, not a measured yield for a particular food or a current supplier quote.

Multiply the stage yields: 0.80 × 0.75 = 0.60. Do not add their percentages. For a cooked portion, 80% trim yield alone stops one step too early. For a recipe quantity recorded before cooking, keep that earlier state explicit instead of treating it as cooked weight.

Measure the product and preparation you use

Weigh the ingredient before and after the specified step, excluding containers. Record the supplier specification, preparation method and test date. Repeat across comparable batches, and recheck when the product or process changes. BCcampus's yield-testing chapter explains AP/EP measurement and repeated tests. The USDA Food Buying Guide distinguishes ready-to-cook from cooked outputs; its child-nutrition purchasing examples are references, not proof of your kitchen's yield.

Reusable trim is a separate output, not automatically discarded food. Our $40 example assigns no by-product credit. When some purchase cost belongs to another usable output, record the allocation with a butcher's test before calculating the primary cut's cost. Adding water or other ingredients also changes batch weight: use a recipe-yield calculation for that batch rather than treating it as this ingredient-loss example.

Try the example in the yield and EP cost calculator: $4 per purchased lb, 10 lb purchased, 6 lb usable and a 6 oz usable portion. Then replace those inputs with your own measured values. The calculator can carry one ingredient into the recipe cost calculator; confirm its identity, price source and preparation basis, then finish the rest of the recipe. Follow the cooking-yield guide for a full test procedure.