Food cost in a restaurant

Every dish’s margin.
Today, not at the end of the month.

The recipe is priced with your own invoice prices, and every night Owlly recalculates the cost of every dish. Owlly also tells you what the dish must cost for the food cost you want.

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14 days of the whole back office free · no card · recipes and food cost are in the 249 zł plan

T-bone steak 400 g in Owlly: cost 47.66 zł, food cost 37.3 % against a 40 % target

Food cost is the cost of a dish’s ingredients divided by its net price.

Net, because the VAT in the menu price is not your revenue. Counting from the gross price understates the result and gives a false sense that the menu adds up.

1Menu price: 138 zł gross. At 8 % VAT that is 127.78 zł net.
2Ingredient cost from the recipe: 47.66 zł.
347.66 ÷ 127.78 = 37.3 % food cost.

Work out your own dish in the free food cost calculator →

From your invoices, not a market average.

Owlly pulls invoices from KSeF every hour, from a mailbox and from a photo. AI links every line to your ingredient, so the same mozzarella from three suppliers has one price history.

Mozzarella fior di latte in Owlly: three names from Italimport, Makro and Metro invoices as one ingredient

Matches AI isn’t sure of wait for you. The rest go in by themselves.

You decide what counts as an ingredient: mozzarella yes, electricity no.

The invoice’s pack becomes the recipe’s unit: a carton of 6 × 1 l is 6 litres of oil.

You choose which prices the recipe uses: the latest invoice, or the average of 2, 4, 8 or 12 weeks, weighted by quantity.

The olive oil went up. You know in the morning, not after the month closes.

Alerts in Owlly: price rises ranked by monthly amount

The next morning you know which product went up and what it costs you.

By the next night at the latest, the cost of every dish with that ingredient includes the new price. Want it now? „Przelicz koszt” on the dish.

Owlly shows what the dish must cost to get back to the food cost you want. The menu price is your decision.

Eighty recipes? You don’t type a single one from scratch.

AI reads your menu as a PDF or from photos and creates the dishes.

A photo of a recipe card: AI reads the ingredients and quantities. You confirm what it wasn’t sure of.

A sauce or a dough is its own recipe, entering dishes as one ingredient. A change in the oil’s price recalculates the sauce, and the sauce every dish it’s in.

Waste on every line and allergens on every dish.

A dish without a recipe is named, never counted as 0 %.

Food cost from invoices, and food cost from what you sold.

With the Owlly till every bill knows its recipes, so while the month runs you see the cost of the dishes sold, not only the purchases. When the month closes you see both readings side by side and the gap between them, per venue too.

The gap is usually waste, portions, or goods that went to the other venue. Owlly doesn’t guess it: it shows it, and you check. The Owlly till is in the 249 zł plan.

Food cost questions

Do I need the Owlly till to count food cost?

No. Recipes and dish costs from invoice prices work from day one. The Owlly till adds the cost of dishes sold and stock from sales.

Count food cost from the net or the gross price?

From net. VAT isn’t your revenue, so food cost counted from gross comes out lower than it really is.

How is this different from a spreadsheet?

A spreadsheet has the prices of the day you made it. Owlly takes the prices from every new invoice, by itself, and recalculates every dish.

What if I buy the same product from several suppliers?

It is one ingredient with a price from each supplier, so you see them side by side.

Which plan has recipes and food cost?

The Full AI operating system plan, 249 zł net per venue monthly. The ingredient catalogue and supplier prices are in every plan, from 149 zł.

Cost your first dish from your own invoices.