Chicken

Chicken is marketed as whole birds, with or without giblets (neck, gizzard, heart, liver) or as halves, quarters, or pieces such as drumsticks, breasts, etc. Breasts are sold with skin and bone or both skinless and boneless or boneless but with the skin. You can even buy the small tenderloin from the breast by itself. Leg meat and thigh meat are also available. In short, you can get exactly what you want to serve on your menu with no waste or extra labor. The cost per pound generally goes up the more your chicken is prepped for you.

For example, a case of 24 five-ounce skin-on, boneless half-breasts costs $19.95 and a case of the same breasts with the skin removed costs $23.15.

1.A case of 24 half-breasts costs $23.15. How much does one half-breast cost?

Assume a chicken, with giblets, weighs 4 lbs. and costs $3.85.

2.What is its AP cost per pound?

3.What is its AP cost per ounce?

While cutting it up you remove the back, neck, heart and gizzard and use them in stocks instead of buying these items separately. You will also use the liver as an appetizer menu item. Therefore, you can deduct their values from the cost of bird. You deduct the cost per pound or ounce that you would have paid had you bought them. Their costs will vary by item. Assume they have a combined value of 60 cents and a combined weight of 16 ounces.

4.How much does the bird weigh now?

5.What is the cost of the bird with out giblets and the back?

6.What is the cost per pound for the bird now?

You are going to lose another 3 ounces of the original weight during cutting plus remove 2 ounces of cavity fat. This leaves you with a lighter weight that still costs the same as your answer to question 5.

7.How many ounces does the bird weigh after deducting the cutting loss and fat?

8.How much does one ounce of the bird cost now?

9.If the whole breast weighs 18.944 ounces what does it cost?

That breast weight represents 29.6% of the original AP weight of the chicken.

10. If the wings weigh 6.8 ounces together, what do the two cost?

11.If the legs and thighs weigh 17.4 ounces combined what is their cost?

12.What is the cost per pound for all these pieces?

A 27 lb. case of breasts, wings, thighs, and legs costs $47.

13. What is the cost per pound for these precut pieces?

14. What's the difference in the cost per pound between the precut and house-cut birds?

While there is quite a savings in food cost by doing all the prepping and cutting in-house, many chefs prefer to buy the chickens already cut up. Breasts and wings are far more popular as menu items. To avoid having too many legs or thighs on hand and possibly spoiling, chefs order the pieces separately in the amounts that reflect the levels at which these various parts sell. It also reduces knife accidents as well as cross-contamination issues.

Turkey

Turkey breast meat can be bought as a whole breast or boneless and skinless and perhaps smoked. A whole breast will yield about 75% (73.6% to be precise) raw meat after boning and skinning. Should you buy the whole breast if, for instance, a whole breast costs $2.25 per pound and the boneless, skinless breast costs $2.85?

To determine the cost per useable pound of the whole breast after trimming, divide the AP price per pound by the 75% yield percentage noted above.

15. What is the cost per pound of the whole breast meat after boning and skinning?

Popular sandwiches feature turkey breast meat. You can buy it already cooked or do it yourself.

A 3-pound boneless, skinless half breast costs $8.55. Cooked, it yields 2.5 lbs.

16. What is the cooked yield percentage?

You can calculate the new cooked cost per pound in two ways. Divide the AP cost by the pounds yielded after cooking. Or, you can divide the AP price per pound by the yield percentage. The second way is preferable because you can apply it to any costing situation and not have to actually cook anything to determine the new price, as long as you already know what the cooking or trimming yield percentage is.

17. What was the cost per pound for the raw, AP turkey breast?

18. What is the cost per pound for the cooked turkey?

19. What is the cost per ounce for the cooked turkey?

20. What would the food cost be for a 3-ounce portion?