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.

Is Your Recipe Data Safe in Food Costing Software? What to Look For

By Heidi Macomber · August 7, 2026

If you run a restaurant, bakery, or food truck, your recipes are your business. That secret sauce ratio, the exact breading mix that keeps regulars coming back, the cookie recipe nobody else can replicate. These are trade secrets. Uploading them to a software tool feels risky, and it should.

A 2024 survey by the National Restaurant Association found that 76% of restaurant operators consider their recipes and menu formulations proprietary information. Yet most food costing and inventory tools do not address recipe data ownership in their terms of service. They collect your data, store it on their servers, and their privacy policies say things like "we may use your data to improve our services." That phrase is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

This article breaks down exactly what to look for before you hand your recipes to any software platform.

The Five Questions You Need to Ask

1. Who owns the data once it is uploaded?

This is the most important question. Some platforms include language in their terms of service that grants them a "license" to use your data. That license might be limited (just to provide the service to you) or it might be broad enough to let them analyze your recipes, build aggregated datasets, or even share insights with partners.

What you want to see: A clear statement that you own your data and the platform does not claim any license to it beyond what is needed to run the service for your account.

Red flag: Terms that say "you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, and create derivative works from your content." That language means they can take your recipe data and build something else with it.

2. Does the platform train AI models on your recipes?

This is the newest concern, and most software companies are not addressing it. As AI becomes embedded in restaurant technology, some platforms use customer data to train machine learning models. Your recipes, pricing, and ingredient data could become training material for AI that eventually gets sold to your competitors or offered as a feature to everyone on the platform.

What you want to see: An explicit statement that your recipe data is never used to train AI models, machine learning systems, or any automated improvement process.

Red flag: Silence on AI training. If the policy does not say "we do not train AI on your data," assume they might.

3. Is your data isolated from other users?

Your recipes should only ever be visible to you and anyone you explicitly authorize. Some platforms pool user data to build benchmarking features, "industry averages," or marketplace insights. Those features might sound helpful, but they require your data to be accessible in aggregate or anonymized form, which creates risk if the anonymization is weak.

What you want to see: A statement that each account's data is isolated and private, with no sharing between users.

Red flag: Features marketed as "industry benchmarks" or "see how you compare to similar businesses." These require pooling your data with others.

4. Can you export your data and leave?

Data portability is a basic right that many platforms gloss over. If you spend three months entering every recipe, every ingredient, every supplier price into a tool, you should be able to take that data with you when you leave. Some platforms make export difficult or only allow it in proprietary formats that are useless outside their system.

What you want to see: A clear promise that you can export your data in a standard format (CSV or JSON) at any time, no questions asked.

Red flag: No export feature, or export only available on the highest pricing tier.

5. What happens when you close your account?

This one catches people off guard. Some platforms retain your data after account closure for "analytics," "service improvement," or "legal compliance." The longer your recipe data sits on their servers after you stop paying, the more exposure you have.

What you want to see: A commitment to delete your data within a specific timeframe (30 days or less) after account closure, with no residual copies retained.

Red flag: Policies that say "we may retain your data indefinitely" or that give no timeline for deletion.

Why Most Restaurant Software Does Not Answer These Questions

The reality is that most restaurant management platforms were built as B2B SaaS products and inherited generic privacy policies written by lawyers who did not understand that recipes are trade secrets. A bakery's frosting formula is not the same as a user profile photo or a shipping address. It is intellectual property.

The platforms that recognize this distinction are the ones that will earn trust from food business owners who take their craft seriously.

What Percy Plate Does Differently

We built Percy Plate specifically for food businesses, and we understand that your recipes are not just data. They are your livelihood. Here is our commitment, spelled out in plain language on our privacy policy page:

You own your recipe data. We never claim ownership, license, or resell anything you enter.
We never train AI models on your recipes. Our AI features use your data to calculate costs for your account only. Your recipes do not become training data.
We never share your recipes. Not with other users, not with competitors, not with data aggregators. Each account is isolated and private.
You can export your data anytime. Email us and get a full CSV export of your ingredients, recipes, and pricing.
Deletion is permanent. Close your account and your recipe data is gone within 30 days.

You can read our full privacy policy at percyplate.com/privacy.

The Bottom Line

Before you upload your recipes to any platform, read the privacy policy and terms of service. If you cannot find clear answers to the five questions above, ask. If the company cannot or will not answer, that is your answer.

Your recipes built your reputation. Make sure the software you trust with them deserves it.

Stop guessing what your dishes cost.

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

Create your free account

View this article in the app: https://percyplate.com/blog/is-your-recipe-data-safe-in-food-costing-software