Food Yield Calculator

Weigh the product as it came off the truck, trim it the way the recipe needs, and weigh what is left: fat cap and silverskin off a brisket, peel and core off pineapple, stems off herbs. Enter the purchased weight, the usable weight and the total price from the invoice.

A 12 lb brisket bought for $51.48 ($4.29/lb) trims to 9 lb: the yield is 75.0%, the waste 3.00 lb, and the usable meat costs $5.72/lb, an increase of 33.3%. The $5.72 figure belongs in a recipe costing sheet, not the $4.29 on the invoice.

To order for a recipe, type the trimmed weight it calls for in Weight needed: 18 lb of usable brisket at that 75% yield means buying 24.00 lb, which costs $102.96 at $4.29/lb.

yield % = usable ÷ purchased × 100

weight to buy = weight needed ÷ (yield % ÷ 100), cost to buy = weight to buy × cost per purchased lb

cost per usable lb = price ÷ usable, increase % = (cost per usable lb ÷ cost per purchased lb − 1) × 100

The increase depends on the yield alone: at 75% each usable pound costs 1 ÷ 0.75 = 1.333 times the purchase price, whatever that price was. The yield number turns green from 80%, amber from 60% and red below; those bands are this tool's own, not an industry standard, so judge a yield against your own past tests of the same product. The fields and the cost lines say pounds, but the arithmetic works in any unit as long as both weights use it, in which case read Cost/lb as cost per kg or per whatever unit you entered. A usable weight above the purchased weight, or a negative value, shows an error. The tool handles one trim test at a time and leaves out cooking loss, which is a separate yield.