{"id":1176,"date":"2026-09-06T11:52:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T11:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costo.menu\/en\/?p=1176"},"modified":"2026-09-06T19:08:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T19:08:29","slug":"theoritiko-vs-pragmatiko-food-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/costo.menu\/en\/theoretical-vs-actual-food-cost\/","title":{"rendered":"Theoretical vs Actual food cost"},"content":{"rendered":"
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CostoMenu Blog \u00b7 Food Cost<\/p>\n

There are two ways to calculate raw-material consumption for a period.<\/p>\n

The POS system, if you feed it recipes and ingredient costs, can report what was sold and the cost of the ingredients of those sales \u2014 cost of goods sold (COGS). That number is the theoretical food cost<\/strong>: the ingredient cost that should<\/em> have been spent, based on the recipes and the sales.<\/p>\n

That implies recipes were followed to the letter, there were no undeclared comps or spoilage, and ingredient prices are updated whenever they change. It assumes zero mistakes.<\/p>\n

Mistakes do happen \u2014 and in a restaurant the nature of the work often does not allow perfect process compliance \u2014 so this is called theoretical, not actual.<\/p>\n

The actual food cost<\/strong> is the amount that really<\/em> was spent in practice, and you find it with a period stock count.<\/p>\n

Key differences<\/h2>\n

Theoretical (Ideal \/ Theoretical Cost)<\/h3>\n