Recipe Costing for Caterers: How to Price Every Dish Accurately

What recipe costing actually involves

Recipe costing is straightforward in principle: add up what every ingredient costs, divide by the number of servings, and you know your food cost per portion. In practice, most caterers get this wrong because they skip the details that matter.

Here is the process that works:

1. List every ingredient in the recipe, including seasoning, oil, and garnish. If it goes in or on the dish, it costs money.
2. Record the purchase unit and price. Chicken breast at £5.50/kg, olive oil at £4.20/litre, fresh thyme at £0.80/bunch.
3. Calculate the amount used per recipe. If your recipe uses 200g of chicken breast, that is 0.2kg at £5.50/kg = £1.10.
4. Sum all ingredient costs for the total recipe cost.
5. Divide by the number of servings to get cost per portion.
6. Add a waste factor. Preparation waste (peelings, trimmings, bones) and cooking loss (evaporation, shrinkage) typically add 5-15% to the raw ingredient cost.

Worked example: costing a chicken supreme

Ingredient	Purchase price	Recipe uses	Cost
Chicken breast (skinless)	£5.50/kg	800g (4 x 200g)	£4.40
Double cream	£1.80/300ml	200ml	£1.20
White wine	£6.00/bottle (750ml)	100ml	£0.80
Shallots	£2.00/kg	150g	£0.30
Butter	£2.50/250g	30g	£0.30
Fresh tarragon	£0.80/bunch	1/2 bunch	£0.40
Salt, pepper, oil	(estimated)	—	£0.20
Total recipe cost (serves 4)			£7.60

Cost per portion: £7.60 / 4 = £1.90

With 10% waste factor: £1.90 x 1.10 = £2.09 per portion

At a 65% target margin, the selling price would be: £2.09 / (1 - 0.65) = £5.97 per portion.

Five mistakes that kill catering margins

1. Forgetting the small ingredients

Seasoning, oil for frying, a squeeze of lemon, a sprig of herb for garnish. Individually these cost pence. Across a 40-cover event with 3 courses, the total can reach £10-15 — enough to shift your margin by 1-2 percentage points.

2. Costing at the wrong purchase price

If you buy from a wholesale supplier at one price but occasionally top up from a supermarket at another, use the price you will actually pay for this event. Averaging across sources gives you a number that does not match reality.

3. Ignoring preparation waste

Chicken breast is sold at one weight but yields less after trimming. Root vegetables lose 15-25% in peeling. Prawns lose their shells. If your recipe calls for 1kg of diced butternut squash, you need to buy roughly 1.3kg of whole squash. Cost the 1.3kg.

4. Not updating costs regularly

Ingredient prices change. A recipe costed in January may be 10-15% more expensive by March if you have not checked prices with your supplier. For events booked months in advance, either requote closer to the date or build a price buffer into your margin.

5. Scaling without checking

A recipe for 4 scaled to 40 by multiplying everything by 10 is a starting point, not a final answer. Seasoning rarely needs a full 10x multiply. Stock, wine, and sauce bases often need less than proportional increases. Leavening agents in baking scale non-linearly. Check each scaled quantity against your experience.

The role of recipe costing in event pricing

Recipe costing gives you the food cost per portion. That is one input into your per-head event price, not the whole picture. A complete event quote also includes:

• Labour: Your time and any staff you hire for the event
• Travel: Getting to the venue and back, including fuel and tolls
• Equipment: Any hired or purchased equipment (chafing dishes, serving ware, cool boxes)
• Packaging: Containers, foil, cling film, napkins, disposable cutlery if applicable
• Administrative time: Menu planning, client communication, sourcing

Use the catering cost per head calculator to combine your dish costs with overhead costs and see the true per-head cost for the full event.

Scaling recipes for events

Scaling is where manual recipe costing breaks down for caterers. A private chef quoting for a 60-cover wedding needs to scale 5-10 recipes simultaneously, each to a different portion count. The maths is not difficult, but doing it by hand is slow and error-prone.

The recipe scaling calculator handles this: enter your recipe at its original yield, set the target number of servings, and get recalculated quantities and costs instantly.

For caterers managing multiple events per week, the time saved on scaling alone can justify moving from spreadsheets to dedicated costing software. That is the point where the spreadsheet starts to cost more in time than it saves in subscription fees.

Sources

• FSA — Allergen guidance for food businesses

This guide covers recipe costing for UK-based caterers. It does not constitute financial advice.