Free Excel template · Excel for restaurants

Free restaurant food cost and prime cost template

For owners and managers who track the numbers every week. Enter food sales, purchases, your closing inventory count and labor cost for each week. The template carries each closing count into the next week's opening, works out food cost %, labor % and prime cost % per week and for the month, counts the weeks over target and shows how many dollars above target the month ran.

cellwise-restaurant-food-cost.xlsxExcel workbook · 4.4 KB · works in Excel, Google Sheets, Numbers and LibreOffice · no signup

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Preview and try it

This is the template's sheet, calculated by the same engine as the Cellwise app. Change any number to see the formulas react before you download.

	A	B	C	D	E	F
1	Week starting	Nov 2, 2026	Nov 9, 2026	Nov 16, 2026	Nov 23, 2026	Month
2	Food sales	19422	17860	21340	23905	82527
3	Opening inventory	4120	3890	4010	4240	4120
4	Purchases	5480	5120	6900	7600	25100
5	Closing inventory	3890	4010	4240	4180	4180
6	Food cost	5710	5000	6670	7660	25040
7	Food cost %	0.29399649882	0.27995520717	0.31255857545	0.32043505543	0.30341585178
8
9	Labor cost (wages and payroll costs)	6850	6420	6980	7410	27660
10	Labor %	0.35269282257	0.359462486	0.32708528585	0.30997699226	0.33516303755
11
12	Prime cost	12560	11420	13650	15070	52700
13	Prime cost %	0.64668932139	0.63941769317	0.63964386129	0.63041204769	0.63857888933
14
15	Target food cost %	0.3
16	Target prime cost %	0.65
17
18	Weeks over target food cost	2
19	Food cost above target this month	281.9
20	Summary	30.3% food cost, 63.9% prime cost (within your target)

How the formulas work

Food cost from inventory

B6=B3+B4-B5

Opening inventory plus purchases minus closing inventory is the food you used. That is the honest number; purchases alone swing with delivery days.

Each week opens with last week's count

C3=B5

This week's opening inventory is last week's closing count. Linking them means you only count once a week, and the month column uses the first opening and the last closing.

Prime cost %

F13=IF(F2>0,F12/F2,0)

Food cost plus labor cost, divided by sales. It shows in one number whether the two costs you control most are in line, and it moves less than either one alone when you shift work between prep and buying.

Dollars above target

B19=MAX(0,ROUND(F6-F2*B15,2))

What the month's food cost would have been at your target (sales times target %), compared with what it was. A percentage point sounds small; in dollars it is easier to see what it is worth chasing. MAX shows 0 when you came in under target.

Make it yours

Count inventory at the same time each week, before the first delivery, so the numbers are comparable.
Keep beverages out of food sales and food cost. If you sell drinks, add rows for beverage sales and beverage cost and track them separately.
Labor cost should include everything you pay for staff time in that week, so weeks with and without overtime compare fairly.
If a week jumps by several points, check the counts first: a missed walk-in shelf moves food cost more than any recipe.

FAQ

How do I calculate food cost % in Excel?

Food cost % = (opening inventory + purchases - closing inventory) / food sales. In this template that is =(B3+B4-B5)/B2, shown as a percentage.

What is prime cost in a restaurant?

Food and beverage cost plus total labor cost. Dividing it by sales gives prime cost %, a single number that covers most of the costs managers control week to week.

What is a good food cost percentage?

It depends on the concept: pizza and pasta places usually run lower than steak or seafood restaurants. Many operators aim for somewhere around 28 to 35%. Set your own target from your menu and track the trend, not one week.

Functions used

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Updated November 2, 2026