Calculate portion yields and costs from raw ingredients

After reading the material, you should be able to:

Itemise components of dishes or food production items

Calculate and adjust portion yields

Calculate and document costs from raw ingredients.

Itemise components of dishes

When providing a quote for food services to a customer, you should produce an itemised list stating the proposed components of dishes or food production items. Itemising a list means to write each

item down individually, including the price and sometimes details about the items as well. This will allow the customer to see exactly what they are paying for and give them the opportunity to calculate the items themselves if they wish to do so. If an itemised list is not voluntarily provided to the customer, they are likely to ask for one before they make a decision about the services or make any payments.

Why you should itemise components of dishes:

To provide the customer with detailed and honest information

Keep track of the components and food production items that are included

Show professionalism and good organisational skills

It may encourage the customer to consider your services.

Calculate portion yields

Recipes will sometimes need to be modified, i.e. increased or decreased, in order to serve the right amounts. For example, if a recipe only serves 4 and you need it to serve 25, then you would need to modify it using a calculation. You may also need to adapt a recipe from different units or determine how much food in a recipe costs to ensure you can make a profit. Yield is how much a recipe will make, and portion is how much you would serve one person.

To adjust the yield of a recipe, you will first need to find out the recipe conversion factor. Once you find out this factor, you would then multiply all the ingredient amounts by it, and then convert the new measurements into appropriate units.

The calculation for adjusting yield is:

Desired yield / original yield = recipe conversion factor (RCF)

Ingredients amounts x recipe conversion factor = new recipe

Some ingredients may be more difficult to scale than others, such as herbs, spices and salt, and you may need to convert some measurements into different units in order to do the calculation accurately. However, some ingredients will be easier to calculate and will just require a simply increase or decrease. For example, if the recipe made 5 servings and you needed to amend it to 50, you would simply multiply 5 by 10 to get your desired amount. Once you have the new ingredients amounts, you may need to round it or convert it to another unit of measure so it is easier to work

with. It is advisable to test the new recipe to make sure it works right, and make any adjustments until you are happy with it.

Modified from source:http://chefsblade.monster.com/training/articles/211-the-ultimate-guide-to-recipe-calculation?page=2. Accessed on 07/11/2016.

Calculate costs from raw ingredients

When calculating food costs and pricing, you will need to include the costs of the total ingredients used, as well as any other expenses such as cost of energy, gas, VAT, room costs and salaries etc. This can be done manually on a cost sheet by calculating the ingredients, or you can use computer software programs to help you cost and document it. You will need to add all your expenses up and then subtract your inventory to determine the total costs of food. When pricing foods, you should combine all the ingredient costs that have been used in the dish and divide the total by 0.35. This will leave you with the minimum cost that you need to charge in order to make a profit on the food.

Food cost percentage formula is a calculation that's shows the percentage of how much it costs to prepare meal: Food cost percentage = total costs of ingredients / sale price.

Modified from sources:http://possector.com/menu/how-to-calculate-food-costsandhttp://www.gourmetmarketing.net/costing-pricing-food-regular-menus-catering-services-special-events/. Accessed on 07/11/2016.

Different ways to calculate costs:

Butcher's test - this is a test used to determine the standard portion costs of items that are portioned after cooking. For example, meat, fish and poultry are cut and trimmed before serving so not the entire portion is given to the customer. To do this test, you would need to weigh the full portion first, cut and trim the meat as normal, then keep all the parts separately and weigh them. Some parts of the meat may be used to make other dishes so you would need to keep a record of this and factor it into the price of the relevant dish.

Standard yield tests - this is a test used to determine what the costs of food products are per person before it is served out. This test should be done for all ingredients and recipes, and you should also consider the losses and waste that will occur during preparation and cooking, and include these in the menu price.

Modified from source:https://opentextbc.ca/basickitchenandfoodservicemanagement/chapter/yield-testing/. Accessed on 07/11/2016.

Refer to the above reading materials and answer the following questions:

:

What is an itemised list and why is it important to do this?

How would you adjust the yield of a recipe?

What will you need to include when calculating food costs and pricing menus?