Recipes & Food Costs · The Galley platform

Recipe and food costing software built for foodservice at scale

Cost every dish, sub-recipe, and menu the moment prices change — with live plate costing, yields, and margins across every location. No stale spreadsheets to chase.

Book a Demo See how live re-costing works ‚Üì

30 minutes · your own recipes, costed live · no obligation

Chicken Caesar Salad · Downtown kitchenLive
Romaine, chopped6 oz$0.42
Grilled chicken breast5 oz$1.38
Shaved parmesan1 oz$0.34
Caesar dressing sub-recipe2 oz$0.38 ‚ñ≤
House croutons1 oz$0.12
Cost / portion$2.64
Food cost26.4%
Margin73.6%
Galley AssistImport a recipe from any photo, file, or URL — AI does the data entry.

The costing engine behind foodservice at scale

Aramark HHS Culinary Institute of America DoorDash HMSHost Hyatt
6,000+
kitchens run on Galley
1M+
meals planned & produced monthly
5+ hrs
saved per chef, every week
98%+
customer retention
‚òÖ‚òÖ‚òÖ‚òÖ‚òÖ 4.8 on Capterra
The problem

Spreadsheet food costing breaks the moment prices move

A recipe costed in a spreadsheet is out of date the day a vendor raises a price. Multiply that across hundreds of recipes, sub-recipes, and locations and you're not costing your food — you're guessing at your margins.

Galley replaces the guesswork with a live costing engine: recipes are structured data, costs are derived from real components and live vendor prices, and every number updates itself as your prices change.

Start with the basics: Food Costing 101 ‚Üí

From ‚Üí To

Stale spreadsheet costsCosts that update with prices
Re-typed for every recipeOne change cascades everywhere
Guessing at marginsTarget food-cost % on every plate
One location at a timeCosting across every location
Hours of manual entryAI imports recipes for you
Definition

What is recipe & food costing software?

Recipe costing software calculates the exact cost of a dish from its ingredients, sub-recipes, and yields, then compares that cost to the menu price to show food-cost percentage and margin. Food costing software does the same across a whole operation — keeping every cost accurate automatically as vendor prices change.

The difference matters at scale. A single-restaurant tool costs one menu; a foodservice costing platform like Galley costs thousands of recipes across every location, rolls the numbers up centrally, and never lets a price change go untracked.

Recipe costing vs. menu costing

Recipe costing is bottom-up — the true cost of one plate, built from its components and yields. Menu costing is top-down — the blended cost and margin of a whole menu or event. Galley does both, from the same live data, so a change to one ingredient is reflected in every plate and every menu it appears on.

Read: recipe costing vs. menu costing ‚Üí
The Galley difference

Change one ingredient. Every dish re-costs itself.

In Galley, recipes are built from ingredients and sub-recipes — and every cost is derived, not typed. Edit an ingredient, update a sub-recipe, or let an invoice arrive over EDI, and every recipe, menu, and location that uses it re-costs automatically.

Derived costs roll up every level Live vendor pricing via EDI & invoices Cost by location & region
Ingredient price change $0.42/oz$0.45/oz▲ 6% Extra-virgin olive oil Auto-updated from EDI invoice · Sysco
Sub-recipe re-costs $0.36$0.38 Caesar dressing
Chicken Caesar Salad$2.62$2.64re-costed
Caesar Wrap$3.10$3.13re-costed
Side Caesar$1.48$1.50re-costed
12 menus · 40 locations re-costed · just now
Capabilities

Everything you need to cost food accurately

One costing engine, built on Galley's food data intelligence — so the number you see is the number you actually paid, down to the plate.

Live plate & recipe costing

Cost every recipe and plate from its true components — ingredients, sub-recipes, and preparations. Cost by location or region, because what you pay differs by where you buy.

The food cost formula ‚Üí

Real-time vendor pricing

Connect live vendor pricing and let EDI and scanned invoices update your costs automatically. When what you pay changes, your recipe costs change with it.

Yields, trim & shrink

Set yield and trim percentages so costs reflect what's actually usable — not the raw purchase weight. Accurate costing down to the ounce.

Sub-recipes & scaling

Build recipes from sub-recipes and scale to any batch or yield. Costs roll up through every nested level automatically — no re-math when you scale.

Target food-cost % & margins

See food-cost percentage and margin on every recipe and menu against your targets — so menu engineering and pricing decisions are data, not debate.

Recipe version history

Every recipe change is versioned and auditable. Compare versions, roll back, or build a new recipe from a prior one — your IP stays yours, and traceable.

Built for scale

Costing built for foodservice at scale — not a spreadsheet replacement

Most food costing tools are built for a single restaurant. Galley is built for operations running dozens or hundreds of kitchens — contract dining, commissaries, catering, and multi-unit groups. Standardize recipes once, roll costs up across every location, and see margin at the plate, the menu, and the enterprise.

200,000
pre-packaged meals a week from one commissary, on standardized recipes.
2,000+
recipes standardized and costed centrally across 100+ chefs and dietitians.
3–5%
lower operating costs after digitizing and standardizing recipes in Galley.
We're doing over 10,000 meals a week. Costing each dish out and knowing our margin per meal — at that volume, you can't run a kitchen without that visibility.

Industry Professional · high-volume foodservice operator

Get recipes in fast, so they're costed sooner

Galley Assist imports recipes from a photo, file, URL, or plain-language prompt — and detects sub-recipes automatically. It's the fastest way to get your recipes into Galley so they start costing themselves. Assist augments your team; it never replaces the chef.

Assist works inside the modules you already use — there's nothing separate to buy, learn, or babysit.

Import from a file or URLTurn a PDF, photo, or web page into a structured Galley recipe.
Auto-detect sub-recipesAssist finds nested components and creates them for you.
Spec sheets & nutrition labelsSnap a vendor spec sheet; the data lands on the item.
≈ 75% less manual recipe entry
Proof

Operators cut real cost with Galley

Standardizing and costing recipes in Galley typically returns 3–5% through better utilization and less waste. Here's what that looks like.

HHS · Contract dining

$375K

saved annually in labor across 100+ chefs and dietitians — with 5+ hours saved per chef, every week.

Read the HHS story ‚Üí

Purple Carrot · Meal kits

$90K

saved a year for one team — 20+ hours a week of manual recipe work eliminated with one source of truth.

Read the Purple Carrot story ‚Üí

Catering by Michaels · Catering

3–5%

lower operating costs after digitizing and standardizing recipes — the same range Galley targets across the board.

More operator stories ‚Üí
In the first three months we took 8% out of our food cost, just from finally seeing what we were actually spending per plate. Before that, we were guessing.

Industry Professional · multi-unit foodservice operator

their numbers — not ours
Go deeper

Everything on food costing, in one place

The guides that already rank — plus the rest of the platform that costing connects to.

Learn food costing

Food Costing 101 ‚Üí

The fundamentals: what to track, why it matters, and where operators lose margin.

Master your food costs ‚Üí

The formulas, calculations, and percentages — with worked examples.

The Food Costing Framework ‚Üí

Per-recipe (not just per-menu) costing, and how to operationalize it.

Food costing your CFO signs off on ‚Üí

What great looks like when finance is in the room.

Explore the platform

Recipe management software ‚Üí

Standardize, version, and share recipes across your whole operation.

Central kitchen & commissary ‚Üí

Cost and produce at commissary scale, batched across every account.

The CRP platform ‚Üí

How costing connects to menus, nutrition, production, inventory & purchasing.

Recipe Book ‚Üí

Turn costed recipes into a live, visual training system for every line.
FAQ

Recipe & food costing software: your questions, answered

Everything operators ask when evaluating recipe and food costing software for a multi-unit or high-volume operation.

What is recipe costing software?

Recipe costing software calculates the exact cost of a dish from its ingredients, sub-recipes, preparations, and yields, then compares that cost to the menu price to show food-cost percentage and margin. In Galley, those costs are derived from live vendor pricing — so when a price changes, the recipe re-costs automatically instead of waiting for a spreadsheet update.

What's the difference between recipe costing and food costing?

Recipe costing is bottom-up — the true cost of one plate. Food costing is broader — keeping every cost accurate across your whole operation, including menus, events, and locations. Galley does both from the same data, so a single ingredient change flows into every plate and every menu it appears on. See recipe costing vs. menu costing.

How does Galley calculate food cost percentage?

Food-cost percentage is the cost of a recipe divided by its selling price. Galley builds the cost side from your actual components — ingredient costs, sub-recipe costs, and yield/trim percentages — and compares it to the price you set, showing food-cost % and margin on every recipe and menu against your targets.

Does the software update costs when vendor prices change?

Yes — automatically. Galley connects live vendor pricing and ingests invoices via EDI and invoice scanning, updating vendor item prices as they change. Because recipe costs are derived from those items, every recipe, sub-recipe, and menu that uses them re-costs on its own.

Can it handle multi-location or multi-unit food costing?

Yes. Galley costs by location and region, since prices differ by where you buy, and rolls costs up centrally across every kitchen. It's built for operations running dozens or hundreds of locations — contract dining, commissaries, catering, and multi-unit groups — not a single-restaurant spreadsheet.

How is Galley different from a spreadsheet or an SMB costing app?

Spreadsheets and single-restaurant apps make you re-type costs and go stale the moment a price moves. Galley is a connected costing engine: recipes are structured data, costs are derived and update with live vendor pricing, sub-recipes roll up automatically, and everything scales across locations — with version history and enterprise-grade permissions.

Does it account for yield, trim, and waste?

Yes. You can set yield and preparation/trim percentages on ingredients and preps so costs reflect what's actually usable after processing loss — not the raw purchase weight. That's the difference between a costing estimate and a number you can price against.

Does it integrate with my distributors and other systems?

Galley connects to major distributors via EDI for ordering and invoicing, ingests scanned invoices, and offers POS and labeling integrations, an open API, and MCP support for AI agents. See the full list of integrations & partners.

Book a demo

See your own recipes costed in Galley

Bring a recipe or two. We'll cost them live, show the margin, and map costing across your locations.

  • Live plate & recipe costing
  • Costs that update with vendor prices
  • Food-cost % & margin on every plate
  • Costing rolled up across every location

Built for multi-unit and high-volume operations. One 30-minute call on a real calendar slot — pick a time that works.

bring your own recipes!

Reserve your demo

Pick a time that works — we'll ask a couple of quick questions to tailor it.