Restaurant food waste cost calculator
Enter what you lose to waste in a typical week and your weekly food sales to see what waste costs you over a year and as a share of food sales. You can also see what a reduction would be worth.
Your numbers
Everything you enter stays in your browser.
Your results
- Waste per year
- $21,840
- Waste per week
- $420
- Waste as a share of food sales
- 3.0%
- Saved over a year at that reduction
- $4,368
How it is calculated
Weekly waste is the sum of the four categories you enter, each priced at what you paid for the food. Waste as a share of food sales is that total divided by weekly food sales, times 100.
The yearly figure multiplies the weekly total by the weeks you are open. The last line is a what-if: it applies the reduction you type to the yearly figure. It is an illustration of the arithmetic, not a forecast.
Get this number every day, without the spreadsheet
Sturgeon works this out from your live POS, invoices, schedules, and waste log, so you see it daily instead of when someone finds the time.
- Food cost & wasteWaste logging that corrects food costLog spoilage, comps, and overprep as they happen. Sturgeon subtracts them from what you bought, so food cost reflects what actually earned revenue, not what you paid.
- Recipes & inventoryRecipes that deduct stock as they sellLive stock and real measures on every recipe. Scale to any yield, convert to any unit, and let inventory deduct itself as items sell. No clipboard.
Questions
How do I know what my waste is?
Log it where it happens for a week or two: what, how much, and why, priced at your last invoice cost. The guide on reducing food waste explains how.
Is the saving a promise?
No. The saving line simply applies the percentage you choose to your yearly waste. It shows what a reduction would be worth, not what any change will deliver.
Why separate the categories?
Because each has a different fix: spoilage is a storage and ordering problem, over-production is a prep problem, trim is a recipe and yield problem, and plate waste is a portioning problem.
More calculators
- Food cost calculatorRestaurant food cost percentage calculatorCost of food used, food cost percentage, and how far you are from your target.
- Prime cost calculatorRestaurant prime cost calculatorCost of goods sold plus labor as a percentage of sales, split into its two parts.
- Recipe cost calculatorRestaurant recipe cost calculatorPlate cost from your ingredients and yield, and the menu price that hits your target.
See your own numbers in Sturgeon in under a week, with your POS connected, your forecasts calibrated, and Stu answering. White-glove onboarding is included.
No credit card. No six-month contract. Your data stays yours.