Percy Plate is a web-based food cost calculator for food trucks, caterers, cottage food producers, and small restaurant owners. It lets you enter your ingredients and what you pay for them, build recipes, and instantly see the cost per serving and recommended sell price based on your target food cost percentage.

Yes. Percy Plate has a free plan that lets you create up to 10 ingredients and 5 recipes to calculate food cost. A paid subscription ($14.99/month or $119.99/year) unlocks unlimited ingredients and recipes plus inventory tracking, revenue reporting, menu engineering, Prime Cost, AI invoice scanning, FDA nutrition facts labels, FDA ingredient labels, and label printing.

How does Percy Plate calculate food cost?

You enter each ingredient, the unit you buy it in (lb, oz, gallon, etc.), and what you pay per unit. When you build a recipe, Percy Plate converts the recipe quantities to your purchase units, calculates the cost of each ingredient used, and divides by the number of servings to give you a cost per serving. It also shows the food cost percentage and a suggested sell price.

Can Percy Plate generate nutrition facts labels?

Yes. Percy Plate can look up nutrition data from the USDA FoodData Central database for each ingredient, then automatically calculate the per-serving nutrition for a recipe. It generates an FDA-format Nutrition Facts panel that can be printed directly to thermal labels (Brother, Dymo, Zebra) or Avery sheet labels in sizes 2x4 inch and 3.33x4 inch.

Can Percy Plate generate an ingredient list label?

Yes. Percy Plate generates an FDA-compliant ingredient label that lists ingredients by weight (heaviest first), automatically detects the top 9 FDA allergens, and includes your business name and net weight. Labels can be printed to thermal printers or Avery sheet labels.

What label printers work with Percy Plate?

Percy Plate supports thermal label printers including Brother QL series (DK-1202 2x4 inch labels), Dymo LabelWriter (30334 and similar), and Zebra desktop printers. It also supports Avery 5163 (2x4 inch) and Avery 5164 (3.33x4 inch) sheet labels for standard desktop printers.

Who is Percy Plate designed for?

Percy Plate is designed for small food business owners including food truck operators, cottage food producers, caterers, small restaurant owners, and anyone who sells homemade or prepared food and needs to track ingredient costs, price their menu, and produce product labels.

Does Percy Plate work on mobile?

Yes. Percy Plate is a web application that works on any device with a modern browser, including phones and tablets. You can look up ingredient costs, update recipe quantities, and check your food cost percentage from anywhere.

How do you calculate food cost percentage?

Food cost percentage = (ingredient cost per serving ÷ menu price) × 100. For example, if your ingredients cost $3.50 and you sell the dish for $12.00, your food cost percentage is 29.2%. Most food businesses target 28–35%. To set a price from a target, divide ingredient cost by your target: $3.50 ÷ 0.30 = $11.67 suggested price at 30% food cost.

What is a good food cost percentage for a small food business or bakery?

Most food businesses target a food cost percentage between 28% and 35%. Bakeries and cottage food producers often achieve lower food cost percentages (20–28%) because flour, sugar, and butter are inexpensive relative to retail prices. Full-service restaurants tend to run 30–35%. The right target depends on your labor costs, overhead, and pricing power in your market.

How do I calculate the cost per serving of a recipe?

Add up the ingredient cost for the full batch, then divide by the number of servings. For each ingredient, multiply the quantity used by the cost per unit (converting units as needed). For example: 8 oz flour at $0.89/lb = $0.89 ÷ 16 × 8 = $0.44. Sum all ingredient costs, then divide by servings. Percy Plate does this calculation automatically once you enter your ingredient prices and recipe quantities.

How does yield percentage affect recipe costing?

Yield percentage accounts for trim loss, cooking shrinkage, and waste. If you buy 1 lb of chicken but only 0.75 lb is usable after trimming, your yield is 75%. To get accurate food costs, divide the as-purchased cost by the yield percentage: $4.00/lb ÷ 0.75 = $5.33 per usable pound. Percy Plate lets you set a yield percentage (AP to EP) on any ingredient so your recipe costs reflect what you actually use.

What is the best recipe costing software for a small food business?

The best recipe costing software for a small food business depends on your needs. Percy Plate ($14.99/month) is built specifically for cottage food producers, food trucks, caterers, and small restaurants — it includes recipe costing, menu pricing, FDA ingredient labels, nutrition facts labels, inventory tracking, and revenue reporting. Competitors like meez start at $24/month and scale to $199/month. Square and Toast do not include recipe costing natively.

Is there free recipe costing software for home bakers or cottage food businesses?

Yes. Percy Plate has a free plan that includes recipe food cost calculation and menu pricing suggestions. The free plan lets you create up to 10 ingredients and 5 recipes. For unlimited recipes, FDA labels, nutrition facts, and inventory tracking, the paid plan is $14.99/month or $119.99/year. No credit card is required to start.

How do I price homemade baked goods to make a profit?

Start with your ingredient cost per batch, then divide by the number of units to get ingredient cost per item. Add packaging (boxes, bags, labels) as a per-unit cost. Then set a target food cost percentage — most cottage food bakers aim for 25–35% — and divide your total ingredient cost by that percentage to get a minimum price. For example: $0.85 ingredient cost per cookie ÷ 0.30 = $2.83 minimum price at 30% food cost. Factor in your time and overhead to ensure you are actually profitable, not just covering ingredients.

What are the labeling requirements for cottage food products?

Most states require cottage food labels to include: (1) the product name, (2) your name and home address, (3) a list of ingredients in descending order by weight, (4) a disclosure statement such as 'Made in a home kitchen not inspected by the state or local health department,' and (5) allergen declarations for any of the 9 major FDA allergens present. Some states also require net weight. Requirements vary by state — check your state's cottage food law for specifics. Nutrition Facts panels are generally not required for cottage food operations below a certain revenue threshold.

Do I need a nutrition facts label on my cottage food products?

Most cottage food producers are exempt from FDA Nutrition Facts label requirements under the small business exemption (fewer than 100 full-time employees and fewer than 100,000 units sold annually). However, you must still list ingredients in descending order by weight and declare all major allergens. Some states impose additional requirements. When in doubt, check your state's cottage food law and the FDA's small business labeling exemptions.

What allergens must I disclose on a homemade food label?

FDA requires disclosure of 9 major food allergens: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soybeans, and sesame. These must be declared on all food labels, including cottage food products — even if a full Nutrition Facts panel is not required. The standard format is a 'Contains:' statement after the ingredient list, for example: 'Contains: Wheat, Eggs, Milk.' Percy Plate detects all 9 allergens automatically from your ingredient names.

How do I create a nutrition facts label for homemade food?

To create a Nutrition Facts label for homemade food: (1) look up the nutrition data for each ingredient using the USDA FoodData Central database, (2) calculate the per-serving amounts for calories, fat, carbohydrates, protein, sodium, and other nutrients, (3) format the panel according to FDA guidelines with serving size, servings per container, and daily value percentages. Percy Plate automates this — it looks up USDA nutrition data for your ingredients, calculates per-serving totals, and generates a print-ready FDA-format Nutrition Facts label for thermal or sheet labels.

How do I list ingredients in the correct order on a food label?

FDA regulations require ingredients to be listed in descending order by weight — the ingredient present in the greatest amount by weight must appear first. For example, if your muffin contains more flour than sugar, flour must be listed first. Sub-ingredients (like those in a chocolate chip) must be listed in parentheses immediately after the component. Percy Plate sorts ingredients automatically by weight when generating your label.

What information is required on a homemade food product label?

A complete homemade food label generally requires: (1) the name of the food, (2) the net quantity (weight or count), (3) an ingredient list in descending order by weight, (4) allergen declarations for all 9 major FDA allergens, (5) your business name and address, and (6) for cottage food specifically, a state-required disclosure statement such as 'Made in a home kitchen not inspected by the state health department.' Nutrition Facts panels are usually optional for small cottage food producers below certain revenue thresholds.

By Heidi Macomber · July 21, 2026 (updated July 28, 2026)

Food Business Budgeting: How to Forecast Sales, Costs, and Cash Flow Without Guessing

Most food businesses budget by looking at last year and adding 5%. That is not a budget -- it is a wish. Here is how to build a real budget that predicts your numbers and flags problems months before they happen.

Why Most Food Business Budgets Fail

A budget is not a goal. It is a prediction model. It tells you what your revenue, costs, and profit will look like under specific assumptions. When reality diverges from the budget, that is a signal -- not a failure.

Most budgets fail because they are:

Built from last year plus an inflation guess
Not connected to unit economics (recipe costs, labor hours, customer counts)
Static (created once a year, never updated)
Ignored until year-end

A good budget is living data. It updates monthly with actuals, flags variances in real time, and helps you make decisions before problems become crises.

The Three Budgets You Need

1. Sales Budget (Revenue Forecast) Forecast sales by day, week, and month. Base it on:

Historical sales data (at least 13 weeks for seasonality)
Day-of-week patterns (Tuesday vs. Saturday)
Known events (holidays, local festivals, weather patterns)
Capacity constraints (seats, kitchen throughput, labor hours)

Do not forecast a single number. Forecast a range: conservative, expected, and optimistic. Track which way reality trends.

2. Cost Budget (COGS + Labor) For each sales forecast level, calculate expected costs:

Variable food cost = forecasted sales x food cost percentage target
Variable labor cost = scheduled hours x hourly rate + burden
Fixed costs (rent, insurance, software) stay flat regardless of sales

The relationship between sales and costs is not linear. If sales drop 20%, food cost drops roughly 20%, but labor does not drop at all if you do not cut hours. This is why low-sales weeks destroy margin.

3. Cash Flow Budget Profit and cash are not the same thing. You can be profitable and run out of money.

Cash flow budget tracks:

When money comes in (credit card batches hit in 2-3 days, some catering clients pay net-30)
When money goes out (rent on the 1st, payroll every two weeks, supplier invoices net-7 or net-14)
Sales tax collected (you hold it temporarily, but it is not your money)

A cash flow budget tells you "in week 3 of next month, I will have $4,000 in the bank but $9,000 in obligations." That gives you time to arrange a line of credit or push a purchase.

Building the Sales Forecast

Start with 13 weeks of daily sales data. Calculate:

Average sales by day of week
Standard deviation (how much each day varies)
Trend line (are sales growing, flat, or declining?)

Then layer in known factors:

Seasonal adjustment (December for restaurants, summer for food trucks, fall for bakeries)
Marketing plans (if you are running a promotion, model the expected lift)
Competitive changes (a new restaurant opening nearby will impact foot traffic)

Your forecast should be specific: "Thursday, July 24: expected $3,200 (range: $2,800-$3,600). Confidence: high."

Building the Cost Forecast

Once you have a sales forecast, costs flow from it:

Food cost: Expected sales x target food cost %. If you target 30% and forecast $20,000 in weekly sales, expected food cost is $6,000.

But adjust for menu mix. If you know a high-margin catering job is next week, your blended food cost will be lower than normal. If a busy weekend is coming with mostly low-margin items, it will be higher.

Labor cost: Based on your schedule, not a percentage. You decide staffing levels based on forecasted volume. If you expect a slow Tuesday, cut one server. If a busy Saturday, add a line cook.

Labor as a percentage is an output, not an input. You do not say "labor should be 25%." You schedule the labor you need and then see what percentage it lands at.

The Monthly Variance Review

Once a month, sit down with:

Budgeted vs. actual sales (by week)
Budgeted vs. actual food cost (dollars and percentage)
Budgeted vs. actual labor cost (dollars and percentage)

For each line that is off by more than 5%, ask why:

Sales below budget: Was the forecast wrong, or did something unexpected happen?
Food cost above budget: Was it prices, waste, or volume?
Labor above budget: Were hours higher than scheduled, or was overtime the issue?

The point is not to assign blame. It is to improve the model. Each month your forecast gets more accurate.

Rolling 13-Week Forecast

The most useful budget format for food businesses is a rolling 13-week forecast. Every week:

Drop the oldest week of actuals
Add a new week of forecast at the end
Update the next 4 weeks based on recent actuals

This keeps your forecast grounded in current reality rather than a static annual plan that goes stale by March.

What Good Software Does

Percy Plate connects your recipe costs, sales data, and inventory into a single model. You see:

Projected food cost for next week based on forecasted sales and current recipe costs
Actual vs. budgeted variance, updated weekly
Cash flow warnings when a low-revenue week coincides with a vendor payment cycle
Labor cost as a live percentage that updates when you adjust the schedule

You stop reacting to month-end P&Ls that tell you what already went wrong. You start seeing problems a week or two before they hit.

Related Guides

Break-Even Analysis for Food Businesses: Know the Number That Means Survival — Break-even point calculation
Restaurant Prime Cost Explained: The Number That Predicts Survival — Prime cost control
Restaurant Percentages: Every Ratio Owners Must Track — Key ratios for forecasting
Labor Cost Percentage: How to Schedule Staff Without Wrecking Your Margins — Labor cost planning and scheduling

Stop guessing what your dishes cost.

Percy Plate calculates recipe costs, menu prices, and FDA-compliant labels for food businesses. Free to start.

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