Food Truck Cost Calculator - Food Cost and Menu Pricing Spreadsheet, Excel and Google Sheets, Instant Digital Download

Sold out by eight, and still nothing left after the commissary check clears.

True plate cost for food trucks and commercial kitchens — ingredients, labor, commissary and vendor fees — and the minimum price that survives a slow service.

You don't need to be good with Excel. You type into the white cells and everything else is worked out for you. The formulas are locked, so nothing breaks by accident.

WHAT'S INCLUDED
• Dashboard — Three headline numbers and two charts. Read-only.
• Start Here — Five steps from opening the file to a real number on screen.
• Recipe Costing — Where you cost one recipe. The main working sheet.
• Ingredients — Your shelf. Enter each purchase once; used everywhere.
• Settings — Labor rate, overhead, target margin and fees.
• Instructions — What each sheet does, and what to do if a number looks off.
• About — Version, license and support.
• PDF Quick-Start Guide — two pages, first result in five minutes

PERFECT FOR
• Food truck owners pricing a new menu before the season
• Commercial kitchen operators watching ingredient prices move
• Caterers costing plates instead of guessing them
• Anyone raising prices and dreading the new menu board

HOW IT WORKS
1. Open Settings. Set your labor rate, overhead %, and the gross margin you want to keep.
2. Open Ingredients. Replace the sample shelf with what you actually buy: price, pack size, unit, and yield % if you trim waste off it.
3. Open Recipe Costing. Name the recipe and say how many units the batch makes.

COMPATIBILITY
✓ Google Sheets
✓ Microsoft Excel 365
No macros. No add-ons. Works immediately.

FAQ

Q: Does this work in Excel and Google Sheets?
A: Both. Google Sheets: File > Import, or open and make a copy. Excel 365: open it directly. No macros, no add-ons, nothing to install.

Q: Why is my line cost showing 0.00?
A: Either the ingredient name does not match a row on the Ingredients sheet, or you bought it by weight and used it by volume. Convert the purchase to the family you cook in.

Q: What is yield % and do I have to use it?
A: Yield % is how much of what you buy you can actually use. Onions lose skin and root; basil loses stems. Leave it at 100 if nothing is wasted — but using it honestly is where accurate costing starts.

Q: How do I handle a sauce used in several dishes?
A: Cost the sauce as its own recipe, note its cost per unit, then add it to the Ingredients sheet as a single line at that price. Every dish that uses it now picks it up.

Q: I'm not confident with spreadsheets. Will I manage?
A: Yes. The white cells are the only ones you touch. The Quick-Start Guide has your first real number on screen in about five minutes, and if you get stuck, message me.