Payback Calculator
What one point of food cost is worth in your kitchen
Documentation is an investment against your largest controllable cost. Enter two numbers you already know, and this shows how much of that cost each engagement has to return before it has paid for itself.
Your operation
Annual figures. Estimates are fine — the arithmetic is the point, not the precision.
Food revenue only. Leave out alcohol.
Most independents run between 28% and 35%.
One percentage point of food cost is worth
Every year. Bringing food cost from 30% to 29% puts that back on your bottom line without selling a single additional cover.
What each plan has to return
Not a projection of what you will save — a measure of how small the improvement has to be before the plan pays for itself. "Pays for itself in" assumes a one-point improvement. You know your kitchen. Decide whether these are reachable.
| Plan | Investment | Break-even | Pays for itself in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Documentation Review Written findings on the material you already have. Credited in full to either plan. | $99 | 0.01 pts | under a month |
| Kitchen Essentials $59 a month. Training program and food safety standard, written to your code and searchable in Finder. | $708 first year | 0.07 pts | under a month |
| Kitchen Complete $149 a month. Adds 40 recipes standardized and costed, menu engineering, and quarterly recosting. | $1,788 first year | 0.18 pts | 2.1 months |
What this calculation leaves out
- Labour paid twice. Every hour a senior cook spends explaining an unwritten recipe to a new hire is skilled time billed against training that should already exist. Real money, harder to put a number on.
- Waste from inconsistency. A dish made four ways by four cooks has four different costs, and the most expensive one sets your actual margin.
- Allergen exposure. An undeclared allergen is a liability that stays quiet until it doesn't. It has no line on a P&L and no ceiling.
- What the documents are worth if you sell. Operations with written standards survive diligence. Ones without them get discounted for it.
This is an estimate built from figures you entered, not a guarantee of savings. No one can promise a specific reduction in your food cost, and anyone who does is selling something else. What documentation gives you is the ability to see the number, defend your pricing against it, and hold it once it moves.