Recipe costing spreadsheet vs software: an honest guide
Benn Asaraf ·
Most kitchens I know cost their menu in a spreadsheet. Usually one the sous chef built three years ago. Nobody trusts the numbers, but nobody has time to fix it.
The short answer: a spreadsheet is fine for a small, stable menu. It breaks when supplier prices move and nobody has the hour to update them. That is the whole decision.
When the spreadsheet wins
Be honest about your kitchen before you pay for anything.
- You run 10 dishes or fewer, and the menu changes twice a year.
- One person owns the costing and actually updates it.
- You buy from two or three suppliers with steady prices.
- You are comfortable with a lookup formula.
If that is you, build a good sheet and keep it. Software will not make your numbers more right. It only saves the time it takes to keep them right.
How to lay out a good recipe costing spreadsheet
The mistake I see most: every recipe tab has its own prices typed in. Butter goes up, and you change it in four places. You miss the fifth.
The fix is one Ingredients tab. Every recipe looks its prices up from there. A price changes once, and every dish moves with it.
Tab 1: Ingredients
One row per thing you buy. Prices always ex-VAT, the way they appear on the invoice.
| Ingredient | Supplier | Pack size (kg) | Pack price ex-VAT | Price per kg | Yield % | Cost per usable kg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken thigh, boneless | Wholesaler | 5 | £32.50 | £6.50 | 90% | £7.22 |
| Potatoes, Maris Piper | Local veg supplier | 25 | £15.00 | £0.60 | 80% | £0.75 |
| Double cream (1 L ≈ 1 kg) | Wholesaler | 2 | £7.20 | £3.60 | 100% | £3.60 |
| Butter, unsalted | Wholesaler | 2.5 | £16.25 | £6.50 | 100% | £6.50 |
| Tenderstem broccoli | Local veg supplier | 1 | £9.00 | £9.00 | 95% | £9.47 |
The formulas are simple:
- Price per kg = pack price ÷ pack size.
- Cost per usable kg = price per kg ÷ yield %.
Yield is the part most templates skip. Peeled potatoes lose about a fifth of their weight. If you cost them at £0.60 a kilo, every potato dish looks cheaper than it is. More on this in yield and waste.
Tab 2: one tab per recipe
Each line pulls its price from the Ingredients tab with VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP. You only type the ingredient name and the quantity.
| Ingredient | Quantity (kg) | Cost per usable kg | Line cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken thigh, boneless | 0.200 | £7.22 | £1.44 |
| Potatoes, Maris Piper | 0.220 | £0.75 | £0.17 |
| Double cream | 0.040 | £3.60 | £0.14 |
| Butter, unsalted | 0.030 | £6.50 | £0.20 |
| Tenderstem broccoli | 0.080 | £9.47 | £0.76 |
| Chicken jus (sub-recipe) | 0.060 | £4.00 | £0.24 |
| Plate cost | £2.95 |
Line cost = quantity × cost per usable kg. Quantity is what goes on the plate, after trim.
The jus is a sub-recipe. Cost it on its own tab, per litre, then add it to the Ingredients tab as if you bought it. That keeps the lookup working.
Bottom of each recipe tab: GP
Put three cells under the plate cost:
- Menu price inc VAT: £14.00
- Menu price ex-VAT: £14.00 ÷ 1.2 = £11.67
- GP: (£11.67 − £2.95) ÷ £11.67 = 74.7%
Always work GP on the ex-VAT price. Do it on £14.00 and you get 78.9%. That number is not yours; the VAT belongs to HMRC. The full reasoning is in GP and VAT. Most UK kitchens aim for 65–72% GP on food, so this dish is healthy.
What happens when the price moves
Your chicken goes from £32.50 to £38.50 a case. In a good sheet you change one cell.
- Price per kg: £38.50 ÷ 5 = £7.70
- Cost per usable kg: £7.70 ÷ 0.9 = £8.56
- Chicken line: 0.2 × £8.56 = £1.71
- Plate cost: £3.21
- GP: (£11.67 − £3.21) ÷ £11.67 = 72.5%
Over two points of GP gone on one dish. Nobody in the pass noticed. If chicken is in five dishes, all five moved. In a sheet with one Ingredients tab, they moved on screen too. In a sheet with prices typed per recipe, they did not.
Where the spreadsheet breaks
It is rarely the formulas. It is the kitchen around them.
- Prices are typed by hand. Someone has to sit with the invoices and copy numbers across. Every typo is a wrong GP.
- Copies of copies. "Menu costing FINAL v3 (Tom's)". Two people edit two files. Neither is right.
- Sub-recipes get flattened. Stocks, sauces and doughs are pasted as fixed numbers. When the bones go up, the jus does not.
- Nobody updates it on a Friday. Invoices arrive during service. By Monday they are in a folder. By the end of the month the sheet is six weeks old.
- It lives on one laptop. The chef costing a special at 11pm is on a phone, not in the office.
- Pack sizes change. The supplier swaps a 5 kg case for a 4 kg one at the same price. The pack price looks the same, so nobody touches the row.
None of this is your fault. A spreadsheet only knows what someone typed into it.
When software is worth it
The honest test: count the hours. If you spend more than an hour a week keeping the sheet current, or you have stopped keeping it current, software starts to pay.
It is worth it when:
- You have more than 15 to 20 dishes, or change the menu often.
- You buy from several suppliers whose prices move week to week.
- You use a lot of sub-recipes.
- More than one person costs dishes, or you run more than one kitchen.
- You want to cost a special on your phone before it goes on the board.
This is why I built Mise n' Price. You photograph one supplier invoice and the ingredient prices fill in. Every recipe shows its cost per portion and GP, with yield, sub-recipes and VAT handled. It is in closed beta and free until 13 December.
If you only need one number today, the free GP calculator takes a VAT-inclusive menu price and a plate cost. It shows the real GP and the price to charge for your target.
What to do this week
- Build the Ingredients tab first. Use your last invoice from each supplier.
- Add yield % for anything you trim, peel or bone.
- Point every recipe at that tab. Delete every hard-typed price.
- Cost your sub-recipes on their own tabs.
- Work GP on the ex-VAT price.
- Put a date on each ingredient row. If a row is older than a month, it is wrong.
If you are costing your first dish from scratch, start with how to cost a dish. If your problem is getting invoice prices in at all, read cost a dish from a supplier invoice.