Food Cost: recipes, margins and analysis

Why it's a game changer

You sell loads of one dish and you're happy. Then you do the math and find you barely make anything on it, while the one few people order is a goldmine. Without the numbers, you're flying blind.

Food cost is the lens that separates a menu that sells from a menu that's actually profitable. Carteia calculates it for every recipe, shows you each dish's margin, and tells you where it pays to act: which to push, which to tweak, which to drop.

You'll find it under Recipes & Margins, split into five views: Dishes, Ingredients, Analysis, Wine and Beer.

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Availability

The module starts on the Ristorante plan. It's completely optional: if you don't set up a recipe, the dish stays in the menu as always.

The four numbers you always see

At the top of the Dishes view you find four summary numbers:

• Average food cost — how much, as a percentage, a dish with a recipe costs you. The warning threshold is 40%.
• Average gross margin — the average margin per portion across calculated dishes.
• Dishes with a recipe — how many you've configured out of the total (e.g. 12/46).
• Critical dishes — how many exceed 40% food cost: the candidates to review.

They're live numbers: add or change an ingredient and they move right away.

1. Dishes — the heart of the module

The first view is the list of dishes, each with price, raw material cost, food cost % and margin. Configured dishes carry a coloured label (green, amber or red); those without a recipe are set up in one click.

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You click a dish and its recipe opens: you set the portions, the food cost you're aiming for, and pick ingredients from your pantry with the quantity per portion. Carteia calculates the cost and shows you the margin shifting as you touch ingredients and price. Calculating a recipe is free (0 credits).

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2. Ingredients — your shared pantry

The Ingredients view is the virtual store: you enter each raw material once and reuse it across all recipes. For each one you set:

• Name, category and supplier.
• Purchase unit and quantity + price (e.g. 1 kg at €8.50).
• Waste / trim (%) — how much you throw away (e.g. bone-in meat, fish to clean): this makes the cost realistic.
• Density (g/ml) — only needed if you buy by weight but use by volume, or vice versa.
• Shelf life (days) — how long it keeps, useful for management.

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In practice:

• Enter the ingredients you use across multiple dishes first: the database grows fast and every new recipe becomes a matter of "putting it together".
• When a new price list arrives from the supplier, you update the price and every affected recipe recalculates by itself.
• Set the waste for raw materials: food cost gets much closer to reality.

3. Analysis — where to look to make more

The last view on dishes is the one you open once a week to decide your moves:

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What you find:

• Most used ingredients — those in the most recipes.
• Most costly ingredients — highest cost per unit.
• Highest incidence on cost — which raw materials weigh most on your total food cost.
• Theoretical demand — how much of each ingredient you need, useful for orders.

From here you also generate the period PDF report (Senza costo aggiuntivo) and the file export of margins, demand or ingredients (Senza costo aggiuntivo per export). Pick the report language first.

4 and 5. Wine and Beer — the cellar has a margin too

The Wine and Beer views apply the same reasoning as food, but to drinks. For each item and each format (bottle, glass, draught) you compare purchase cost with sale price and see:

• Items in the catalogue and number of formats.
• Average food cost of the category.
• Maximum margin (the best format for each item).
• Incomplete formats — those missing a price or cost, to complete.

Formats without a price or cost are highlighted, so you know right away what to fix. Here too you can generate a dedicated PDF report (Senza costo aggiuntivo).

Credit costs — summary

Operation	Cost
Calculating a recipe	Senza costo aggiuntivo
Recipe sheets PDF (for the kitchen)	Senza costo aggiuntivo
Period PDF report (Analysis, Wine, Beer)	Senza costo aggiuntivo
File export (margins, demand, ingredients)	Senza costo aggiuntivo

The credits included in your plan cover normal use. If you run out, you buy a credit pack from Account → Buy credits.

Good to know

• Dishes without a recipe stay in the public menu: the module adds, it doesn't remove.
• Food cost only considers the raw material. Energy, staff and other costs stay out.
• Changing an ingredient's price affects all the recipes that use it: take a look before saving.

Next steps

• Insights and Analytics — the menu matrix reads the margins you set here
• AI menu import — fill the menu fast, then do the recipes
• Plans and credits — included credits and packs