FoodNormIQ calculates normative food costs with yield-adjusted, shrinkage-adjusted, labour-loaded precision. For any restaurant, any POS, any scale — anywhere in Europe.
Most restaurants track food cost as a % on the P&L. By the time you see it, the money is already gone. The real question is: what SHOULD each dish cost?
Costs go stale the day you enter them. When salmon rises 12%, you find out 4–6 weeks later on the monthly P&L — after you've already lost thousands.
You buy 5 kg of salmon at €11/kg. After trimming and cooking, you have 3.5 kg usable. Your true cost is €15.71/kg — not €11. Most restaurants never calculate this.
Avocado goes up 18%. It affects your guacamole, avocado toast, Southwest bowl, and 4 other recipes. How many did you catch? Probably none.
A "30% food cost" on the P&L doesn't tell you which dishes are profitable and which are bleeding margin. Averages hide the extremes.
"Should I raise the price?" Without knowing the exact cost, yield, and margin per recipe, you're guessing. Guessing costs restaurants 3–5% of revenue.
You sold 200 salmon bowls. You should have used 62 kg. You actually used 80 kg. That's 18 kg of waste — €200/week, €10,400/year — from one item.
You provide the recipes. We handle the maths. No new hardware, no new workflows.
Type them in, upload PDFs/photos (AI digitises them), or import from your existing system. USDA yield defaults pre-loaded for 800+ ingredients.
Scan vendor invoices with AI (photo or PDF), enter prices manually, or connect your purchasing system. Prices auto-cascade across all recipes.
Upload POS exports (CSV/Excel), connect your POS API (Toast, Lightspeed, Square, iZettle), or enter daily totals manually.
Normative cost per recipe, menu engineering matrix, what-if simulator, theoretical vs actual analysis, alerts. Updated daily.
Every restaurant is different. Some have digitised everything. Some run on paper and a chef's memory. FoodNormIQ works for both — and everything in between.
Our Recipe Capture Service digitises your binders, PDFs, and handwritten notes using AI. Or use our step-by-step Recipe Builder with autocomplete and USDA ingredient database. We can build normatives together.
Our Invoice Intelligence module (powered by Azure Document Intelligence) reads photos and PDFs of invoices — extracts vendor, items, quantities, unit prices, and dates automatically. Just snap a photo.
Start with manual daily entry (item × quantity × price — takes 5 min/day). Graduate to CSV upload or direct API connection when ready. Even weekly category totals enable useful analysis.
Our OpEx Benchmarker pre-loads industry averages by restaurant type (casual, fine dining, QSR, café). Override with your real numbers where you know them — rent, utilities, insurance. We fill the gaps.
800+ USDA yield factors pre-loaded — covering every common protein, produce, dairy, and dry good. Cooking shrinkage by method (grill, roast, fry, boil). Fully adjustable to match your kitchen.
Our Market Price Scanner (coming soon) tracks ingredient prices across wholesalers in your region. Until then, vendor comparison tools show you if you're overpaying vs. other FoodNormIQ customers.
Start with recipe costing. Grow into full menu intelligence. Each module builds on the last.
True cost per recipe adjusted for yield loss, cooking shrinkage, and prep waste. USDA defaults with manual override. Sub-recipe trees cascade automatically. Precision to €0.01.
Scan invoices with AI or enter manually. Track price trends per ingredient per vendor. Alerts when prices spike beyond thresholds. 12-month history per ingredient.
Every dish classified as Star, Workhorse, Puzzle, or Dog based on sales volume × margin. Know exactly which items to promote, reprice, reposition, or remove.
Change any input — ingredient price, portion size, cooking method, menu price — and instantly see the cascading impact on cost, margin, and annual profitability.
Compare what you SHOULD have used (recipes × sales) against what you ACTUALLY used (invoices/inventory). The gap = waste + theft + portioning drift.
Your salmon doesn't just cost ingredients — it costs 12 minutes of prep at €16/hr. Full cost per recipe per kitchen minute. Reveals true "contribution per minute."
Which dish gives the best margin per minute of kitchen time? A €2 margin dish in 3 minutes beats a €6 margin dish in 20 minutes. This changes which items to push.
Price spikes, margin erosion, waste thresholds, vendor price divergence, menu imbalance, seasonal opportunities, break-even warnings. Email + dashboard. Configurable.
Full P&L beyond food cost: rent, utilities, insurance, marketing, R&M, technology. Industry benchmarks pre-loaded. See true dish profitability including overhead allocation.
Spreadsheets gave you a starting point. FoodNormIQ gives you the destination.
| Capability | Spreadsheets / Manual | FoodNormIQ |
|---|---|---|
| Recipe Costing | Static. Outdated within days. | Live. Auto-updates when any price changes. |
| Yield Adjustment | Rarely calculated. Assumed 100%. | USDA defaults + custom overrides. Cascading. |
| Cooking Shrinkage | Ignored entirely. | Per method (grill, oven, fry) with actual %. |
| Price Changes | Manual find-and-replace across sheets. | 1 price update → all recipes recalculate instantly. |
| Menu Engineering | Separate analysis. Maybe quarterly. | Always-on Star/Workhorse/Puzzle/Dog classification. |
| Theoretical vs Actual | Massive manual effort. Rarely done. | Automatic. Connect POS + invoices = daily AvT. |
| What-If Scenarios | New spreadsheet per scenario. | Instant. Change any input, see cascading impact. |
| Invoice Processing | Manual data entry from paper. | AI scanning: photo/PDF → extracted line items. |
| Alerts | You notice (or you don't). | Auto-alerts on price spikes, margin erosion, waste. |
7 dashboard tabs with real restaurant data. Explore recipe costing, what-if scenarios, alerts, and more.
No login required. 12 recipes, real yields, live what-if sliders.
Whether you run 1 restaurant or 50, your recipes determine your margins.
"I can model costs, yields, and margins for a new dish in minutes. No more spreadsheet nightmares. I know if it's profitable BEFORE it goes on the menu."
"I can finally see which dishes make money and which don't. The what-if simulator saved me from a €35K pricing mistake on our new seasonal menu."
"Theoretical vs actual food cost is the metric I always wanted. Now I see exactly where waste happens — by location, by week, by ingredient."
FoodNormIQ monitors your data continuously and alerts you when something needs attention — before it costs you money.
Triggered when any ingredient rises >5% in a month or >10% in a quarter. Shows which recipes are affected and the annual cost impact. Suggests substitutions.
Triggered when any recipe's margin drops below your threshold (default: 50%). Shows the drift over time and recommends reprice, reduce portion, or substitute.
Triggered when theoretical vs actual variance exceeds 15% for 2+ consecutive weeks. Identifies the specific ingredient causing the gap. Suggests portioning checks.
Triggered when your vendor is >10% above market average (or other FoodNormIQ customers) for an ingredient. Shows savings potential of switching.
Triggered when >3 items are classified as "Dog" for 4+ weeks. Suggests menu redesign with specific replacement recommendations.
Triggered when an ingredient enters its seasonal low-price window. Suggests seasonal specials or permanent swaps that reduce costs.
Any system that exports sales data as CSV or Excel — Lightspeed, iZettle, Square, Toast, Revel, Clover, Aloha, and dozens more. We also support direct API connections for major platforms and manual daily entry for those without electronic exports.
Three ways: type directly (our interface is built for chefs with autocomplete), upload existing documents (PDF, Word, Excel, photos — AI digitises them), or use our Recipe Capture Service where we build the normatives together with your team.
Upload invoices (photo or PDF — AI extracts line items automatically), enter prices manually, or connect your purchasing system. When one price changes, every recipe using that ingredient recalculates instantly.
A normative cost is the TRUE cost of a recipe after accounting for yield loss (trimming, peeling — e.g. salmon fillet is only 82% usable), cooking shrinkage (grilling loses 15–25% weight), and prep waste. Most restaurants only track raw ingredient cost — normative costing reveals reality.
Yes. Our Recipe Capture Service works alongside your chef to document and digitise every recipe. We provide templates, USDA ingredient defaults, and a step-by-step builder. Most kitchens with 30–50 recipes are fully digitised in 1–2 days.
Yes. Compare recipe costs, vendor prices, and waste patterns across locations. Identify which kitchens are executing well and which need intervention — all from one dashboard.
Based on USDA Agricultural Handbook data covering 800+ ingredients. Accurate for most operations but fully adjustable — if your butcher trims differently or your chef portions differently, override the defaults to match your kitchen.
We offer plans based on the number of recipes and locations. Request a demo and we'll walk you through the options that fit your operation.
Request a demo and we'll show you FoodNormIQ with recipes that match your menu — your ingredients, your portions, your cooking methods.
We'll reach out within 24 hours to schedule a walkthrough.