What one dish actually costs

PLATE COST ANALYSIS

What one dish actually costs

A line-by-line cost reconstruction of a single menu item, the contribution it returns on each sales channel, and the decisions that change once the number is correct.

**Costed conventionally this dish reports a food cost of 24.1 per cent. Costed correctly it is 36.2 per cent. Every menu decision taken on the first number is taken on a twelve-point error.**

This report sets out how the difference arises, quantifies it, tests it against the commercial variables most likely to move, and states what should change in pricing, channel policy and control. Section 2 records the basis of preparation and the limitations that attach to every figure that follows.

1. Executive summary

One main course, reconstructed from purchase invoice to plated portion and followed through to net realisation on each channel.

Finding 1 — The plate cost is understated by 29.8 per cent

Conventional costing returns a food cost of ₹81.90 per portion. On a correct basis it is ₹116.72. The gap of ₹34.82 arises entirely from method, not price: trim loss is unpriced, the base gravy is divided by input weight rather than finished weight, and nothing is carried for service loss.

Finding 2 — The dish is two different businesses

At the counter it returns ₹216.78 of contribution on a ₹340 price. Through the aggregator, after funded discount, commission, irrecoverable GST on that commission and settlement charges, it returns ₹99.84. Cost as a share of money actually banked is 36.2 per cent dine-in and 56.6 per cent delivery.

Finding 3 — The error is material at outlet level

At 25 covers and 40 delivery orders a day, the understatement on this dish alone is ₹2,263 a day and ₹8.26 lakh a year — conservatively, counting only the food-cost element.

Headline figures

Recommendations, in order of value

• Recost the twenty highest-volume dishes on an edible-portion and finished-weight basis. Ten working days of two people.
• Hold a channel-wise price grid. Do not carry one menu price across two economics.
• Set a contribution floor per delivery order and refuse campaigns that breach it. A thirty per cent funded discount needs a forty per cent volume lift to stand still.
• Run theoretical-versus-actual consumption monthly against a three per cent tolerance. Until it runs, the costing above is an assertion.
• Bring packaging onto the recipe as a bill of materials — ₹13.40 an order, invisible in most systems.

2. Basis of preparation and limitations

Scope

The analysis is prepared at contribution level. Ingredient, sub-recipe, packaging and accompaniment costs are loaded into the plate. Labour, rent, utilities, depreciation and central overhead are deliberately excluded and belong in the profit and loss account, not in the plate cost. Contribution figures in this report are therefore gross of all fixed cost.

Costing conventions applied

• Ingredients issued directly to a plate are costed at edible-portion rate, being the invoice rate divided by the tested yield.
• Sub-recipe lines are costed at as-issued quantities and invoice rates. All loss between issue and finished base — preparation trim and cooking reduction alike — is captured in a single finished-weight yield, which avoids double counting.
• A service and wastage allowance of three per cent is applied to ingredient subtotal and disclosed as a separate line.
• Packaging is treated as a direct material of the delivery channel. Complimentary accompaniments are treated as a direct material of the dine-in channel.

Taxation

Restaurant supply is assumed to be taxed at five per cent without input tax credit. On that footing the goods and services tax charged by the aggregator on its commission is not recoverable and has been treated as a cost of the delivery channel. Menu prices are stated exclusive of output tax. This report expresses no opinion on any tax position and is not a substitute for advice from your chartered accountant.

Limitations

• Prices are illustrative market rates for August 2026 and are not drawn from any single supplier. They must be replaced with the outlet's own invoice rates before any decision is taken.
• Yields are stated at typical levels and have not been verified by physical test at any specific outlet. Yield varies with supplier, season, grade and butchery.
• Commission rates, discount-funding splits and settlement charges vary by contract, city and campaign. The rates modelled are representative and may since have changed.
• No stock count, no purchase ledger and no point-of-sale extract has been examined. This is an analytical reconstruction and carries no assurance.

Figures throughout are rounded for presentation. The companion workbook carries them unrounded, and every total in this report ties to a formula in that file.

3. Method: where the three losses arise

Loss one — trim

A kilogram bought is not a kilogram cooked. Peel, skin, bone, stem, core and shell leave before the pan. The invoice rate is the as-purchased rate; the rate that belongs in a recipe is the edible-portion rate, being invoice rate divided by yield. Coriander purchased at ₹80 a kilogram costs ₹145 a kilogram once stems are stripped. Boneless chicken thigh at ₹300 costs ₹319 after sinew and fat.

Loss two — reduction

This is the largest single error in Indian kitchens, because Indian menus are built on base gravies. A batch reduces on the stove. Dividing batch cost by what went into the pot understates the cost of what came out of it, and that error is then repeated on every dish the base touches.

Loss three — service

The last ladle that never sells, the spill, the remake, the tray that goes cold at closing. Universally paid for and almost never costed. Carried here as a visible three per cent allowance so that it can be argued with, rather than buried inside a padded quantity.

And the cost that is not a loss at all

Packaging is a raw material of the delivery order, not an overhead. It attaches to one channel and not the other, which is the structural reason a single plate cost cannot serve a business that sells through both.

4. Cost build-up

4.1 Ingredient master

Only the two lines that reach the plate directly are drawn at edible-portion rate. The remainder enter through the sub-recipe and are dealt with at 4.2.

4.2 Sub-recipe SR-01 — makhani base

On a 200 gram ladle the difference is ₹12.39 per plate. In a North Indian kitchen this base sits under most of the menu, so the error compounds across the card rather than resting on one dish.

4.3 Dish build

Chicken is drawn at 200 grams raw against a plated 150 grams, reflecting a seventy-five per cent cooking yield. Costing the plated weight at the purchase rate — the commonest single error in restaurant costing — would understate this line alone by ₹18.83.

4.4 Packaging bill of materials

At forty delivery orders a day this is ₹24,120 a month of direct material that does not appear on a conventional recipe card.

5. Channel economics

The dish is priced at ₹340 across the counter and listed at ₹399 on the platform. Those two prices do not describe two margins on one product; they describe two products.

5.1 Dine-in

5.2 Delivery, through the aggregator

Effective commission is the contracted 22 per cent grossed up for 18 per cent GST, which is not creditable under the five per cent restaurant scheme and is therefore a true cost of the channel.

**The dish returns ₹217 across the counter and ₹100 through the app. Menu engineering that treats those as one dish is engineering a menu that does not exist.**

5.3 Decision prices

6. Sensitivity

Each driver is flexed in isolation against the delivery channel, which is the thinner of the two. Base contribution is ₹99.84 per order.

Two conclusions follow. Discount funding is by a wide margin the most destructive variable on the sheet, and it is the one most often agreed to informally. Portion drift is second, and it is entirely within the kitchen's control — a ten per cent drift costs more than a two-point commission increase.

**A thirty per cent funded discount requires a 40.4 per cent lift in order volume simply to hold total contribution flat.**

6.1 Two-way grid — contribution per delivery order

Read the grid before you agree to a campaign, not after. The grid is live in the companion workbook and moves with your own listed price and plate cost.

7. Recommendations

8. Control framework

A plate cost is a promise about what leaves the kitchen. Only a stock count tests whether the promise is kept. Without the check below, everything in this report remains an assertion about a recipe rather than a measurement of a business.

Appendix A — Yield reference

Indicative ranges for sanity-checking only. Yield moves with supplier, season, grade and butchery, and must be tested in your own kitchen — weigh in, prepare, weigh out, three times, take the average.

Appendix B — Using the companion workbook

Blue text on a yellow fill marks every cell you edit. Black is formula and should not be overtyped. Green marks a link to another sheet. Replace the illustrative prices with your own invoice rates and every figure downstream reprices.

Prepared by ChefDesk. Rates and platform terms stated as at August 2026 and subject to change. This report is an analytical review prepared for management use, carries no assurance, and is not tax, legal or investment advice.