Actual vs. Theoretical Food Cost Worksheet

Your theoretical food cost says one thing. Your actual food cost, pulled from real inventory, often says another. That gap, and knowing exactly how big it is, is the fastest way to tell whether you have a pricing problem, a portioning problem, or a theft problem.

If you've never run the two numbers side by side, or you're not sure how to read the gap once you have, the Actual vs. Theoretical (AvT) Food Cost Worksheet does the math and gives you a clear next step.

This free worksheet takes your total sales, your theoretical food cost (from your recipes and what sold), and your actual food cost (from beginning inventory, purchases, and ending inventory), and calculates your variance three different ways, plus checks it against a benchmark.

Key Benefits of the Actual vs. Theoretical Food Cost Worksheet:

• ‍Automatic Variance Calculations: Enter your sales, theoretical cost, and inventory numbers, and the worksheet calculates your actual food cost, both food cost percentages, and your variance automatically.‍
• Three Ways to Read the Gap: See your variance in dollars, in percentage points, and as a percent of theoretical, so you understand both the size of the leak and how far off track you are relative to your own numbers.‍
• Built-In Benchmark Check: Get an instant read on whether your variance falls inside a healthy range, without pulling industry data yourself.‍
• A Clear Troubleshooting Order: If your gap is bigger than you'd like, the worksheet tells you where to look first: recipe and price data, then inventory counts and timing, then physical loss like portioning, waste, or theft.

Run it once and you'll see where your dollars are actually going. Run it every period and you'll start catching the leak before it becomes a pattern. Download the worksheet and find out what your numbers are really telling you.