Free tool
How much chicken to pull and how early to pull it
Work the thaw backward from orders so you open the right number of cases and start the pull early enough to stay in refrigerated thaw.
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What your weekly family box actually leaves you
Enter the box price and your real per pan costs to see food cost percent, the margin the box leaves and what each entree contributes.
Food cost percent is the number the whole trade quotes and the number most small kitchens compute wrong, because they price the recipe and forget the yield. The chicken thigh that cost four dollars a pound in the case does not all reach the tray. Trim, thaw drip, the sauce left in the pan and the two portions that came up short all get paid for at case price and sold for nothing.
This calculator adds that loss back before it divides, then subtracts the two costs that quietly decide whether a box program survives: the tray, film and label on every entree, and the honest cost of the hours to cook and pack it, including your own. What comes out is a gross contribution per box, before delivery fuel, rent, insurance and the phone. Read it as the money available to cover those, not as profit.
Your result
Ingredient cost per box
$44.28
Recipe cost after the weight lost to trim, drip and pan scrape.
Food cost as a percent of box price
29.7
Most kitchens in this trade aim to hold this at thirty or under.
Gross margin per box
$84.97
What is left after ingredients, packaging and the labor to cook and pack.
Margin contributed per entree
$16.99
Useful when you are deciding whether to add a sixth entree option.
This is gross contribution per box, before delivery fuel, commissary rent, insurance and your own overhead.
Why yield loss belongs before the division
A pork shoulder priced at three dollars a pound is not three dollars a pound on the plate. Bone, fat cap and cook loss can take a quarter of it, and if your recipe card records the trimmed weight while your invoice records the case weight, your food cost percent is optimistic by exactly that gap. The number then looks fine on paper while the bank account disagrees.
Set the yield loss field from your own scale, not from a rule of thumb. Weigh a case in, weigh the trim bin, weigh the portioned trays out, and do it once per protein per supplier. Eight percent is a fair default for boneless chicken handled carefully. Bone in cuts and braises run higher, and anything you thaw and drain runs higher again.
What to do when the percent comes back high
Raising the price is the obvious lever and often the correct one, but it is the slowest to act. The faster levers are portion weight, menu mix and pan count. Half an ounce off a six ounce protein portion across five entrees serving four is over a pound of protein per box, and almost nobody notices half an ounce. Swapping one beef entree in the rotation for a braised chicken thigh dish moves the whole box more than any packaging decision will.
Then look at the pan. Overfilled trays cost ingredients twice, because they also freeze slowly and reheat watery, which is how a food cost problem turns into a remake and a refund. Fill to the declared net weight, seal, and let the price carry the rest. If the percent still sits above thirty five after all that, the box is underpriced for the market you are serving.
Questions about this calculator
Should my own hours really go in the labor field?
Yes, at the rate you would pay someone to replace you. A box program that only clears because the owner works free has no room to hire, and hiring is the only way most kitchens get past sixty boxes. If the margin disappears once your hours are counted, that is the finding, not an error.
Does delivery belong in this calculation?
Not in this one. Delivery cost is per stop rather than per box and it changes with route density, so mixing it in hides both numbers. Work out cost per stop separately, then subtract it from the gross margin this calculator gives you.
How often should I rerun this?
Once per menu rotation at minimum, and immediately after any protein or dairy price move. Kitchens that check quarterly usually discover a two point slide that has been running for eleven weeks. Reprice at the rotation boundary so customers see a clean change rather than a mid cycle surprise.
More free tools and working documents
Working document
The frozen meal label and allergen audit checklist
Run this checklist across one entree before your next production day and you will find out in twenty minutes what an inspector would find in five.
Take that number off the screen and onto a pan tag
A figure you calculated once on a Sunday is useful for about four days. A figure that redoes itself when eleven more households add the chicken entree before the deadline is what gives the evening back. Bring one recipe card and a normal week's order count to a demo and watch the same calculation arrive on a pull sheet, a pan tag and a route sheet without you retyping it.