In this section
- What recipe yield is and how to measure itWhat recipe yield means, why it rarely matches what the recipe says, and how to measure it over three batches so your cost per unit is right.→
- Yield percentage: as purchased vs edible portionHow to work out yield percentage from as-purchased to edible portion weight, and use it to cost what you peel, trim and cook. Formulas and an example.→
- How to measure and cost food wasteHow to log food waste for a few weeks, turn it into a cost per unit sold and add it to your product cost. With a worked example from a small bakery.→
- How to scale a recipe without breaking the costHow to scale a recipe up or down: the right conversion factor, rounding to what you can buy, what does not scale evenly and how to recost the bigger batch.→
- How to write a standard recipe cardThe fields a standard recipe card needs, why every quantity goes in grams, and how to get a true cost per unit from it. With a complete example card.→
- Portion control: what over-portioning costs youHow to work out what you lose when portions run bigger than your recipe, how to measure it in your own kitchen, and the simple tools that fix it for good.→
- Adjusting recipes to the pack sizes you buyWhen to cost an opened pack by the gram and when to cost the whole pack, plus four ways to fit recipes to what you buy so leftovers stop eating your margin.→
- Ingredient substitutions: when they save moneyHow to tell whether swapping an ingredient for a cheaper one really lowers your cost: compare per unit sold, with yield, prep time and quality all counted in.→
- How batch size changes your cost per unitWhy a bigger batch lowers your cost per unit, why each increase saves less than the one before, and how to find the batch size that actually pays for you.→
A recipe becomes a reliable cost when you know four things: what you pay for each ingredient in the form you use it (trimmed, peeled, cooked), how many sellable units each batch really gives you, how much you lose along the way, and what changes when you make more. With those, the cost per unit is one division: total batch cost ÷ units you actually sell. The division is easy. Getting both numbers right is the work.
In this guide
This is the overview. Each step has its own guide with more detail:
- What recipe yield is and how to measure it
- Yield percentage: as purchased vs edible portion
- How to measure and cost food waste
- How to scale a recipe without breaking the cost
- How to write a standard recipe card
- Portion control and why it matters for margin
- Adjusting recipes to the pack sizes you actually buy
- When ingredient substitutions save money
- How batch size changes your cost per unit
If you are not yet sure what belongs in the full cost of a product (packaging, your time, energy, rent), start with how to calculate the cost of a food product. This guide stays with the recipe, which is where most costings quietly go wrong.
Why the recipe in your head is not a cost
Recipes are written for cooking, not for costing. They say "a cup of sugar", "a handful of coriander", "one onion". That works at the stove because your hand corrects as you go. It does not work on paper, because every batch is a little different and you do not know which one you are costing.
Between the recipe and the real cost there are three gaps:
- What you buy is not what you use. You buy 1 kg of chillies with stems; less than that goes into the pot.
- What the recipe promises is not what comes out. The recipe says 24 brownies; you count 21 you would sell.
- What comes out is not what you sell. Something burns, something drops, something is still on the table at the end of the market.
Each gap makes your cost per unit look lower than it is. Together they can eat a large share of what you think you are making, as the example below shows.
Step 1: write the recipe in grams
Weigh everything once on a kitchen scale. It does not need to be expensive; it needs to be used every time. Write each ingredient in the form it goes into the recipe: "900 g chillies, stems removed", not "a kilo of chillies". Write down what the batch weighs or how many units it makes, and how much goes into each portion.
That is a standard recipe card. Everything else builds on it, because it lets you repeat the product and cost it with the same numbers every time. The guide on how to write a standard recipe card covers the fields worth including.
Step 2: cost each ingredient as you use it
The price on your receipt is for what you bought. If the recipe calls for the trimmed ingredient, you have to move that price onto the trimmed weight:
cost per kg trimmed = price per kg as purchased ÷ yield percentage
If chillies cost you $6.00 a kilo and each kilo gives you 900 g after stemming (90%), a trimmed kilo costs 6.00 ÷ 0.90 = $6.67. Using $6.00 in the recipe is the most common recipe costing mistake. The guide on yield percentage: as purchased vs edible portion shows how to measure it and what to do when there is cooking loss on top.
Check the pack size too. If the recipe needs 300 g of something sold only in 1 kg bags and the rest goes off before you use it, the real cost is the whole bag. That is covered in adjusting recipes to the pack sizes you actually buy.
Step 3: measure what really comes out
Recipe yield is how many sellable units (or sellable kilos) one batch gives you. Not what the online recipe says and not what you get by adding up the ingredient weights: what you count or weigh at the end, cooked, cut and ready to sell.
Measure it over three batches in a row and use the average. That number is the divisor for your whole costing, so any error in it is multiplied into every unit. The guide on what recipe yield is and how to measure it has the full method.
Step 4: count the waste the recipe does not show
Some waste is already inside your yield: peel, stems, the batter left in the bowl. Do not add that again.
What is missing is production and sales waste: the batch that burned, the jar that cracked, the cream that expired, the loaves left unsold on Sunday. You measure that with a simple log for a few weeks and spread it over what you did sell. The guide on how to measure and cost food waste shows how to keep the log and turn it into a cost per unit.
Step 5: control the portion
Portion and yield are the same thing seen from two sides. If your card says 150 g per bottle and you fill 165 g so it "looks full", the batch gives fewer bottles and each one costs more. Nobody notices on one bottle; you notice at the end of the month. Weigh portions at the start of every batch until your hand repeats them on its own. The guide on portion control has the maths and the tools.
Step 6: scale with care
When a product sells well, you make more. To scale a recipe, take the multiplier from your real yield: if a batch gives 12 bottles and you want 36, multiply by 3. Then round to what you can actually buy (nobody sells 2.4 pineapples) and cost the batch again with the rounded quantities.
Not everything scales evenly. Spices and salt get adjusted by taste. Setup and cleanup time barely grows. Energy grows less than the quantity. And you have to measure the yield of the bigger batch again, because a fuller pot or a crowded oven behaves differently. See how to scale a recipe without breaking the cost and how batch size changes your cost per unit.
If you are thinking of swapping an ingredient for a cheaper one, run the full numbers first: a swap can lower the price per kilo and lower the yield at the same time. The guide on ingredient substitutions walks through it.
Worked example: bottled hot sauce
You sell hot sauce in 150 g bottles. Your recipe card lists ingredients in their prepped form. You measured each trim yield by weighing before and after:
| Ingredient | In the recipe (prepped) | Yield | What you buy | Price | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Red chillies, stemmed | 900 g | 90% | 1.00 kg | $6.00/kg | $6.00 |
| Onion, peeled | 450 g | 90% | 0.50 kg | $2.00/kg | $1.00 |
| Garlic, peeled | 80 g | 80% | 0.10 kg | $10.00/kg | $1.00 |
| Carrot, peeled | 270 g | 90% | 0.30 kg | $1.50/kg | $0.45 |
| White vinegar | 600 ml | - | 600 ml | $2.00/L | $1.20 |
| Salt and sugar | - | - | - | - | $0.35 |
| Total ingredients | $10.00 |
What you buy is the prepped weight divided by the yield: 0.90 ÷ 0.90 = 1.00 kg of chillies; 0.45 ÷ 0.90 = 0.50 kg of onion; 0.08 ÷ 0.80 = 0.10 kg of garlic; 0.27 ÷ 0.90 = 0.30 kg of carrot.
Batch yield. Add up the recipe weights (900 + 450 + 80 + 270 g of vegetables, about 600 g of vinegar and 30 g of salt and sugar) and you get 2,330 g, or about 15 bottles of 150 g. But when you weigh the finished sauce after simmering, blending and straining, you have 1,850 g. 1,850 ÷ 150 = 12.3: 12 full bottles, with the rest lost to tasting and the sides of the blender. Over three batches you got 12, 12 and 13, so you use 12.
The rest of the batch cost:
- Bottle, cap and label: 12 × $0.90 = $10.80
- Your time: 1.5 hours at $15 an hour = $22.50
- Energy: $1.50
Real cost per bottle:
- Batch: 10.00 + 10.80 + 22.50 + 1.50 = $44.80
- Per bottle: 44.80 ÷ 12 = $3.73
The quick version many people use: purchase prices on prepped weights, and trusting the recipe's yield.
- Chillies: 0.90 × 6.00 = $5.40; onion: 0.45 × 2.00 = $0.90; garlic: 0.08 × 10.00 = $0.80; carrot: 0.27 × 1.50 = $0.41
- Ingredients: 5.40 + 0.90 + 0.80 + 0.41 + 1.20 + 0.35 = $9.06
- Per bottle: (9.06 + 22.50 + 1.50) ÷ 15 = $2.20, plus $0.90 packaging = $3.10
The difference: 3.73 − 3.10 = $0.63 per bottle. At 80 bottles a month, that is $50.40 a month you think you are making and are not. If you sell a bottle for $7.00 before tax, you thought your margin was (7.00 − 3.10) ÷ 7.00 = 55.7%. The real one is (7.00 − 3.73) ÷ 7.00 = 46.7%.
If you overfill. At 165 g per bottle instead of 150 g: 1,850 ÷ 165 = 11.2, so 11 bottles. The cost becomes (10.00 + 22.50 + 1.50) ÷ 11 = $3.09, plus $0.90 packaging = $3.99. Fifteen extra grams per bottle cost you $0.26 a unit.
If you double the batch. Ingredients $20.00, you measure 24 bottles ($21.60 of packaging), your time rises to 2.5 hours ($37.50) and energy to $2.50. Total $81.60 ÷ 24 = $3.40 a bottle. It drops by $0.33, not by half.
Common mistakes
- Purchase price on prepped weight. This is the mistake in the example. On the chillies alone it shows $5.40 where you really spent $6.00. The more you throw away when you prep, the bigger the error.
- Using the original recipe's yield. A recipe from the internet does not know your pot, your oven or your portion size.
- Counting the same waste twice. If peel is already in the yield percentage, do not put it in the waste line again.
- Measuring once. One batch can come out unusually well or badly. Three batches give you a number you can trust.
- Never measuring again. Chillies change size with the season, you switch supplier, you buy a bigger blender. Any of those moves the yield.
How often to review a recipe costing
Measure yield again when you change supplier, when a heavily trimmed ingredient changes season, when you change equipment, or when someone else starts making the product. Update prices whenever you pay more, even by a little: with the card in grams and the yields written down, recosting takes minutes.
A properly costed recipe has five numbers written down: the purchase price of each ingredient, the trim yield of each, the real batch yield, the portion, and the waste cost per unit sold. If one is missing, your cost is an estimate.
Do it with the calculator
In the food cost calculator you enter ingredients with their purchase price, the real batch yield and your packaging, and it gives you the cost per unit and the price you need for your margin.
Frequently asked questions
What is recipe costing?
It is working out what each unit from a recipe costs you. You add up what you paid for every ingredient in the batch, plus packaging, energy and your time, and divide by the number of units you actually sell.
Is waste already included in yield, or added separately?
It depends on the kind. Trim waste such as stems, peel and bones belongs in each ingredient's yield percentage. Burnt batches, spoiled stock and unsold units are added separately as a waste cost per unit sold. Do not count the same loss twice.
How many batches should I measure to get my yield?
At least three, then use the average. If the results swing a lot from batch to batch, use the lowest until your process is more consistent.
If I double a recipe, does the cost per unit halve?
No. Ingredients and packaging rise almost in step with the batch. What spreads better is setup and cleanup time and some of the energy, so the cost per unit falls a little, nowhere near half.