Understanding Recipe Costing Breakdowns
The recipe details page in Recipe Cost Calculator has a lot of data, and we're here to help break it down for you if there is anything you're unsure of.
Below you'll find a screenshot (current in late 2023) of a recipe cost breakdown. Below the screenshot we will break down what each line means. If you have any questions that we don't answer, feel free to reach out any time and we'll happily help!
If you have specific questions about the message that looks something like "some ingredients are not included in the weight calculations because they have no weight-based measurement converter", click here.
If you would like to force ingredients to be excluded from an ingredients weight-based calculations, you can re-classify the category that the ingredient belongs to as non-food. See the article on Ingredient Categories here.
Recipe Cost and Yield Data
The screenshot below contains a ton of useful information that we describe below. One useful thing to know is that the small icons to the right of the numeric values (a person or a calculator) indicate whether the values are numbers that you provide (person) as opposed to numbers that Recipe Cost Calculator calculates for you (calculator).
You can hover or click over any of the question mark or warning icons and you'll receive some contextual help and useful information.
Total Recipe Cost
This is the sum of the cost of all ingredients in the recipe, calculated for you automatically.
Cost Per Unit
This is the total cost of the recipe divided by the yield count.
Yield Count x Units
This is how you have defined your Yield Count (a number) and your Yield Units (a string or descriptive text) when you created your recipe. We have a whole article on understanding yield count and yield units.
Target Margin
This is a value you can optionally specify when you create your recipes. The target margin is your way to say "I would like to make a gross margin of a minimum of XYZ% on this recipe", where XYZ% is the gross margin you are targeting. If you provide this number then Recipe Cost Calculator can start to provide some incredibly valuable data and reporting to ensure that your specified sell price is meeting your target margins based on your current ingredient costs. Recipe Cost Calculator will also warn you both in the recipe and on your account dashboard if your target margins are not being met.
Sell Price Per Unit
This is the amount you sell the item for. You can specify this when editing the recipe.
Gross Margin
This is a calculated amount that is the actual gross margin (as opposed to your target margin) based on your current sell price and current ingredient costs. If you have provided a target margin and the current actual gross margin is lower than your target margin, this will be displayed in red as a warning for you to review.
Minimum Sell Price Per Unit
This is a calculated value that tells you the minimum price you would need to set your sell price in order to earn your targeted gross margin based on your current ingredient costs.
Gross Recipe Weight
This is the calculated total weight of the ingredients in the recipe, displayed both before and after any ingredient waste (ingredient waste percentages can be specified in the ingredients themselves).
If you have ingredients like labor or packaging or consumables that you would like to exclude from the weight calculations you can edit the definition of the ingredient category and set it to Non-Food. Non-Food categories are excluded from weight calculations.
Gross Portion Weight
The gross portion weight is the calculated total weight of the ingredients divided by the yield count.