Food Waste Percentage Calculator

Food waste percentage is the share of the food you bought that ended up in the bin instead of on a plate or in a sale. Measure it by cost for a dollar number, or by weight if you weigh your waste — the formula is the same.

Food waste formula

• Food waste %: food wasted ÷ food purchased × 100. Use the same period and the same measure (dollars or weight) for both numbers.
• Waste cost: weight wasted × average cost per pound (skip this step if you log waste in dollars).
• Waste as % of sales: waste cost ÷ food sales × 100 — the food cost percentage points you lose to waste.
• Yearly waste cost: weekly waste cost × 52, or monthly waste cost × 12.

How to calculate food waste percentage

1. Pick a period. Use a full week or month so busy and quiet days even out.
2. Total your purchases. Add up food purchases for the period from your invoices, or use food cost from your P&L.
3. Log every discard. Keep a waste log or separate bins, and record each item thrown away by category: spoilage, prep trim, overproduction, plate waste and other.
4. Divide and multiply. Food waste % = total waste ÷ food purchased × 100. The calculator also converts it to dollars and annualizes it.
5. Fix the biggest category first. One category usually accounts for most of the loss. Start there, then re-measure after two weeks.

Worked example

A cafe's week: A cafe buys $6,000 of food in a week and logs $540 of waste: $220 spoilage, $140 prep trim, $110 overproduction and $70 plate waste. Food waste is $540 ÷ $6,000 = 9%, or 7.8% in the kitchen alone. That is about $28,080 a year.

What a 25% cut is worth: Cutting that waste by a quarter saves about $7,020 a year. On $18,000 of weekly food sales, waste currently costs 3 food cost percentage points.

What is a good food waste percentage?

Industry studies commonly cite that 4–10% of the food a restaurant buys is thrown away before it reaches a guest. Under 4% is best in class, 4–10% is typical, and above 10% means a real leak in ordering, storage or prep. Benchmarks usually exclude plate waste, so the calculator compares your kitchen waste (everything except guest leftovers) with that range.

Types of restaurant food waste

• Spoilage and expired: product that goes off before it is used — usually an ordering, par level or rotation problem.
• Prep and trim: peels, bones, fat and trim. Some is unavoidable; the rest is over-trimming or a poor yield.
• Overproduction: food cooked or prepped but never sold — batch sizes that do not match demand.
• Plate waste: what guests leave behind — often a portion-size or menu signal.
• Other: dropped, burnt or remade dishes and wrong orders.

How to reduce food waste in a restaurant

1. Rotate stock with FIFO. Date-label everything and keep the oldest product in front. FIFO food storage guide.
2. Order to par, not by habit. Base orders on what you actually use, and cut par levels on items that keep spoiling.
3. Batch to the forecast. Prep from a sales forecast so overproduction falls. Demand forecasting guide.
4. Measure your yields. Know how much usable product each case gives and train to that standard. Food yield calculator.
5. Write off every discard. A write-off log with a reason for each item shows what is lost, where and why. How write-off tracking works.
6. Go deeper. Causes, formulas and solutions in one place: How to reduce food waste in restaurants.

Food waste FAQ