Yield percentage formula: how to calculate food yield and edible-portion cost

In chemistry, percent yield means actual yield ÷ theoretical yield. In a kitchen, yield percentage means edible weight ÷ purchased weight. This page is about the kitchen.

The invoice sells you bone, skin, peel, fat, and water. The guest eats what is left. Yield percentage connects the two. It drives what a portion really costs, how much to order, and how many portions a delivery will give. A US culinary teaching sheet names those three uses: recipe costing, the minimum to order, and the maximum servings (kitchen calculations). This guide is written for GCC kitchens. Below: the formula in four forms, a butcher yield test, trim against cooking loss, yield against batch yield, and what drift costs. This page goes deeper on the yield step of recipe costing.

What yield percentage means in a kitchen

Yield percentage is the share of the as-purchased weight you can use. It is one ingredient: trim, bone, peel, and what the pan takes. Write it as a percentage or as a decimal, and say which. 62% is 0.62. Divide by 0.62, not by 62.

As purchased (AP) is the invoice weight and the invoice price. Edible portion (EP) is what goes on the plate after cleaning, trimming, boning, cooking, and portioning. Batch yield is a different word: what a recipe produces, as a weight or a count of portions, not a percentage of loss.

A wrong yield is wrong on every plate that uses the ingredient, and wrong again on the order for those plates. One dish is a recipe cost or a portion cost, not COGS.

Book figures are a start, and they are not your kitchen. These are US reference yields from the same teaching sheet. Use them only until you test your own (kitchen calculations).

The sheet's own potato example is 50 lb purchased and 42.5 lb edible, which is 85%. Yield also moves with the cook's skill, the size of the product, and its condition, so a copied figure is a starting point, not a standard (kitchen calculations).

The yield percentage formula, step by step

Five steps, on one product, trimmed the way the recipe trims it. Step 4 uses an illustrative potato example. The table repeats those invented weights.

1. 1. Weigh the product as purchased (AP), in the unit you buy it

   As-purchased (AP) weight is the invoice weight, in the unit you buy. Write the supplier and the price beside it.

2. 2. Clean, trim or butcher it exactly as the recipe does, and weigh what you will use (EP)

   Edible portion (EP) is what that same recipe uses after cleaning, trimming, boning, cooking, and portioning. A different trim is a different yield.

3. 3. Make sure AP and EP are in the same unit

   Kilograms with kilograms. A US culinary teaching sheet calls this the same-units check. Dividing grams by kilograms is not a yield.

4. 4. Divide EP by AP and multiply by 100

   Yield % = EP weight ÷ AP weight × 100. Illustrative example, not a yield test: 20.00 kg of potatoes as purchased, peeled to 17.00 kg, is 17.00 ÷ 20.00 × 100 = 85.0%. Say 85% or 0.85, and say which. Waste % on the same weights is 15.0%.

5. 5. Write down waste % and the date, product, supplier and who did it

   Waste % = (AP weight − EP weight) ÷ AP weight × 100, which is 100% minus the yield %. Record the date, the product, the supplier, and who did the test.

Using yield: edible-portion cost and how much to order

Edible-portion cost

EP cost per kg = AP price per kg ÷ yield %, as a decimal. The recipe page writes the same rule as EP cost = AP price ÷ yield %. On the illustrative potatoes, SAR 4.50 ÷ 0.85 = 5.294, which is SAR 5.29 per usable kg. The weight is invented. SAR 4.50/kg is the GASTAT July 2026 national retail average for medium local potatoes, not a wholesale invoice (average prices).

How much to order

AP quantity to buy = EP quantity needed ÷ yield %. Round up. At the illustrative 85%, 30.00 kg peeled needs 30.00 ÷ 0.85 = 35.29 kg, which rounds up to 35.3 kg as purchased. A US textbook uses the same rule: 5 lb of edible beef chuck at 62.5% yield is 5 ÷ 0.625 = 8 lb to buy (Dopson, chapter 5).

The cost factor

1 ÷ yield % is how many invoice kilograms you pay for one usable kilogram. At the illustrative 62% trim yield, 1 ÷ 0.62 = 1.61, so each usable kilogram costs 1.61 times the invoice price. A textbook calls 100 ÷ yield % the factor (yield testing). A 2.5 kg tenderloin trimmed to 1.75 kg is a 70% yield and a cost factor of 1.42. A whole chicken at an illustrative 65% usable yield has a cost factor of 1 ÷ 0.65 = 1.54. Par levels are set in AP units and recipes are written in EP units, so yield is the conversion: par levels and reorder points and the par level calculator.

The butcher yield test (worked example, ILLUSTRATIVE)

A butcher yield test records every part of a meat, poultry, or fish purchase, not only the piece on the plate. This lamb leg is an illustrative example. The weights and prices show the arithmetic. They are not a Gulf yield test, a benchmark, or a customer result.

Record every part

Record the main cut, usable trim, bones, and discarded fat, each with its weight and its share of the original. That is the textbook layout (Dopson, chapter 5). On this illustrative leg, 6.20 + 1.00 + 2.00 + 0.80 = 10.00 kg.

Yield of the main cut

The main cut is 6.20 kg raw, a trim yield of 62.0% (0.62). That is after boning, before cooking. It is not a carcass yield.

By-product credits

Credit usable trim and bones only if they go into a recipe you cost, such as mince or stock. If they go in the bin, they stay in the main cut's price. Meat and poultry trim can have a value. Vegetable peel usually does not (kitchen calculations). Here the invented credits are 1.00 kg × SAR 30.00 and 2.00 kg × SAR 5.00, SAR 40.00 together.

EP cost with and without credits

With no credits, 580.00 ÷ 6.20 = SAR 93.55 per kg. With the SAR 40.00 of credits, (580.00 − 40.00) ÷ 6.20 = SAR 87.10 per kg. The gap is real only if the mince and the stock are on a costed recipe.

A yield test card

Keep the date, product, supplier, AP weight, AP price, each part's weight and share, the credits, the EP cost, and who tested it. The yield % column lives on the recipe costing template. This site has no yield calculator yet. The same file is also a CSV.

Trim loss and cooking loss: two separate hits

Trim yield is after cleaning and butchering. Cooking yield is after cooking. Combined yield = trim yield × cooking yield. On the illustrative lamb, 62% × 70% = 43.4%: 6.20 kg raw finishes at 4.34 kg cooked. After the SAR 40.00 of credits, cooked cost is 540.00 ÷ 4.34 = SAR 124.42 per kg. A 150 g portion is SAR 18.66. At the invoice price it is SAR 8.70, understated by SAR 9.96.

Cooking changes the yield, and the method changes it again. A US university extension study gives, per 1 lb as purchased, a whole chicken at 0.47 fried, 0.45 roasted, and 0.50 stewed. Bone-in thigh is 0.66 meat only raw and 0.52 roasted. Boneless thigh is 0.84 raw meat only and 0.66 roasted (PDF, record). Using only the raw trim yield on a cooked plate leaves the second loss out.

Lamb, from a US extension note, is 65% to 75% as bone-in regularly trimmed retail cuts, and 43% to 50% as boneless closely trimmed cuts, as a share of chilled carcass weight. A carcass can lose 2% to 5% of its weight in the first 24 hours (Wisconsin extension). Those ranges are carcass shares. They are not the yield of a leg you buy already cut, and they are not the 62% trim yield in the illustrative example.

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  A textbook cooking-loss test on a leg of lamb finishes at about 43% saleable: 1,600 g of 3,750 g (cooking loss test).

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  A Jeddah retail study found frozen imported chickens lost 4.15% to 7.98% of their weight on thawing (broiler meat quality).

Fish fillet yields, and the hamour example that applies one of them, are on how to cost a recipe. This page does not repeat that arithmetic. A US culinary reference says the seafood yields it lists vary on average by about +/- 3 points (seafood yields).

Rice and pasta can finish heavier than they started, so a cooked-weight yield can sit above 100%. This page shows that only in the illustrative rice batch below.

Which cut is cheaper per usable kilo?

The cheapest invoice price per kg is not the cheapest usable kg. Whole chicken at SAR 19.56/kg lands at SAR 43.46 per roasted kg (17.60 ÷ 0.9 ÷ 0.45), about the same as thigh at SAR 42.31. The fillet is SAR 64.23. Wholesale prices and your own yields decide what you buy. This table does not.

Yield % vs batch yield (recipe yield)

Yield % is EP ÷ AP for one ingredient. Batch yield, or recipe yield, is what a recipe produces: a weight, or a number of portions. They do not share a column on a cost card.

The 250% is a weight yield, 12.50 ÷ 5.00, not a loss percentage and not the batch yield. The batch yield is 50 portions of 250 g, and the rice-only portion is SAR 0.93. Cost a central-kitchen batch where it is made, on the finished weight. That page's example is a sauce from 2 kg down to 1.8 kg (central production). Groups keeping one method are in recipe costing for restaurant groups.

What yield drift costs, and how it shows up in variance

Same illustrative lamb leg: trim yield 58% instead of 62% leaves 5.80 kg of meat. Credits stay SAR 40.00. Cooking yield stays 70%, so cooked weight is 4.06 kg and 540.00 ÷ 4.06 = SAR 133.00 per kg. The 150 g portion is SAR 19.95, which is SAR 1.29 above SAR 18.66. At 40 portions a day for 30 days that is about SAR 1,545, computed on the unrounded gap of 1.2871. Invented weights, price, and volume. Not a forecast.

The recipe card still assumes 62%, so the theoretical cost stays put while actual COGS rises. The gap is food cost variance. Actual COGS for the period comes from the COGS formula.

Re-test when the supplier, the product spec or the size, or the person trimming changes. The teaching sheet ties yield to skill, size, and condition (kitchen calculations). The textbook says to re-test when the supplier or the spec changes (Dopson, chapter 5).

Trim that should have been used, and was not, shows up as waste. Log it in how to track kitchen waste. The gap beside the waste log is waste and variance.

Five yield mistakes

1. Costing protein at the invoice price

On the illustrative lamb, 150 g cooked is SAR 8.70 at the invoice price and SAR 18.66 at the edible cost, SAR 9.96 apart. That gap also flatters the margin on a restaurant P&L.

2. Using only the trim yield on a cooked plate

The raw 62% is not the plate. Combined yield multiplies trim yield by cooking yield. Dropping the illustrative 70% leaves the portion on the raw meat.

3. Copying a book or supplier figure and never testing your own

The CIA percentages, the Texas A&M chicken yields, and the carcass ranges are US reference figures. A Gulf kitchen weighs its own lamb, chicken, and fish.

4. Crediting by-products that go in the bin

SAR 93.55 becomes SAR 87.10 per kg only when the mince and the bones are costed. Trim in the bin gets no credit.

5. Mixing yield % and batch yield in one column

An 85% potato yield and a 50-portion rice batch are different numbers. One divides a price. The other divides a batch.

Yield, VAT and purchase prices

Use AP prices on the same basis as the cost card. Where input VAT is recovered, that is normally the invoice price excluding VAT. Saudi Arabia's rate is 15%, and VAT inside an inclusive price is price × 15/115 (ZATCA retail guideline). No other rate is stated here. Period purchases sit in the COGS formula guide, and a menu price in the VAT menu price calculator.

How AKLI handles yield

AKLI is AI restaurant management software for food cost, inventory, recipe costing, waste and variance, purchasing, and a live P&L by branch and for the whole group. See how AKLI handles food cost. It is not a POS. It connects to your POS to import sales (integrations). AKLI costs recipes at weighted average cost (WAC).

The recipe costing software stores the recipe, the yield, and the current ingredient price, including quantities with yield and sub-recipes. An invoice updates the weighted average, the edible-portion cost, and every recipe on that item. Sales from the POS put theoretical cost next to actual COGS, so yield drift shows up as variance on that branch. A central kitchen holds a batch recipe with yield on the producing branch and costs it on the finished weight (central production). The price is SAR 299 / QAR 290 / AED 293 / BHD 30 / OMR 31 per branch per month, excluding VAT. See your recipe costs move with every invoice.

Sources

Published figures link to the pages below. Invented inputs are the potato weights, the lamb test, the 62%, 70%, 58%, and 43.4% yields, the SAR 1.29 and SAR 1,545, and the rice cooked weight. The chicken SAR-per-kilo column is US yields on Saudi retail prices.

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  US culinary teaching sheet (kitchen calculations).

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  US cost-control textbook (Dopson, chapter 5).

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  US chicken yields (PDF, record).

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  US lamb carcass yields (Wisconsin extension).

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  US seafood yields (seafood yields).

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  Open textbook, yield testing and cost factor (yield testing).

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  Open textbook, leg of lamb cooking loss (cooking loss test).

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  Jeddah retail market, thaw loss on frozen imported chicken (broiler meat quality).

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  Saudi Arabia, GASTAT, July 2026 retail prices (average prices PDF).

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  Saudi Arabia, ZATCA, 15% VAT (retail guideline).