US Meal Prep Cost Guide: Price Weekly Meals and Bowls for Profit

Meal prep margins disappear in small, boring places.

Not because your chicken suddenly doubled overnight, but because portions drifted, packaging crept up, and bundle discounts were copied from a competitor without checking contribution margin.

For US operators, this is usually a channel problem as much as a recipe problem: pickup, direct online orders, and marketplace delivery each leave you with different net revenue. If you run one menu price across all three channels, one channel almost always leaks margin.

This guide gives you a practical workflow you can run monthly with your team: benchmark inputs, lock portions, cost by channel, then set bundle discounts that still protect margin.

Quick Summary

• Cost each meal by component: protein, starch, veg, sauce, garnish, packaging
• Convert to $/oz or $/each before pricing anything
• Calculate margin on net receipts by channel, not one universal menu price
• Use BLS/FRED benchmarks as guardrails, then replace with your supplier invoices

Why US Meal Prep Costing Breaks So Easily

In a dine-in restaurant, small yield or portion errors can hide for a while. In meal prep, they multiply immediately because you are batching dozens or hundreds of identical units.

Three patterns cause most pricing mistakes:

1. Yield assumptions are copied from old prep sheets and never rechecked.
2. Packaging is treated as overhead even though it is per-unit.
3. Bundle discounts are set from market pressure, not costed mix.

If your sheet does not track costs at component and channel level, you are still guessing.

The Core Meal Prep Cost Formulas

Use the same base formulas for every recipe card:

Usable amount = Purchase weight x (1 - loss rate)
Unit cost = Price / Usable amount
Item cost = Unit cost x Portion amount
Meal cost = Sum of item costs + packaging
Food cost % = Meal cost / Menu price

If a denominator is 0, treat the cost as 0. If the result is NaN or Infinity, set it to 0 and fix the inputs.

US Ingredient Benchmarks (BLS/FRED, U.S. City Average)

These are public retail benchmarks from BLS average price series (via FRED). They are not your contract prices, but they are useful for spotting outlier vendor quotes quickly.

Quick conversion:

Price per oz = Price per lb / 16

Use these only as directional baselines, then replace them with invoice-level prices and your own yields.

Step 1: Lock Portions and Yield Assumptions

Document exact target portions for every component:

• Protein (oz)
• Starch (oz cooked)
• Vegetables (oz)
• Sauce (oz)
• Garnish (oz)

Then document your real cooked yield per batch. If those two lines are missing, the rest of the calculation is unreliable.

Step 2: Convert to Unit Costs

Do not price from case totals. Convert each ingredient to $/oz or $/each first.

Example:

Chicken breast price = $4.153/lb
Price per oz = 4.153 / 16 = $0.26
Cooked yield = 75%
Cooked cost per oz = 0.26 / 0.75 = $0.35

Now your 5 oz cooked protein portion has a real, auditable cost.

Step 3: Add Packaging and Channel Costs

Packaging belongs in per-unit meal cost. Channel fees belong in per-order net revenue math. You need both views.

Typical packaging line items:

• Container
• Lid
• Label
• Utensils
• Bag or sleeve

Then separate your channels:

• Pickup/direct website orders
• In-house delivery
• Marketplace delivery

Even with the same menu price, net receipts are different by channel. That alone can move your true food cost percentage by several points.

Example #1: Chicken Teriyaki Bowl (Single Unit)

Assumptions (replace with your real prep card):

• Chicken (cooked): 5 oz
• Rice (cooked): 6 oz
• Veg mix: 3 oz
• Sauce: 1.2 oz
• Garnish: 0.2 oz
• Packaging: 1 set

Yield assumptions:

• Chicken cooked yield: 75%
• Rice yield: 1 oz dry -> 2.8 oz cooked

Cost breakdown:

Price targets:

For most markets, this lands around a $9.49 to $10.99 selling band depending on channel and labor model.

Example #2: Same Menu Price, Different Channel Margin

Assume this bowl is listed at $9.99 on both channels.

Food cost is fixed at $2.96, but channel payout changes:

This is why many US meal prep operators set channel-specific prices or minimum order policies. One menu price for every channel usually means one channel is underpriced.

Example #3: Weekly 10-Meal Bundle

If your single-meal menu price is $9.99 and you offer a 10% bundle discount:

Bundle price = 9.99 x 10 x 0.90 = $89.91
Bundle food cost = 2.96 x 10 = $29.60
Food cost % = 29.60 / 89.91 = 32.9%

At a 30% target, this discount is too deep for this cost structure. At a 33% target, it may still be workable.

The point is simple: discount only after you cost the bundle mix.

Monthly Workflow You Can Actually Run

1. Update protein, rice, and packaging costs from invoices.
2. Recheck cooked yield on top-selling proteins.
3. Recalculate top 10 meals by channel.
4. Reprice bundles from weighted meal cost, not from a flat discount.
5. Publish one price change date for all channels to avoid mismatch.

Related Guides

• US Prep Yield Calculator
• US Menu Price Rounding Guide
• US Value Menu Pricing Guide
• US In-House Delivery Fee Pricing Guide
• US Commissary Kitchen Cost Guide

Want This Done Automatically?

KitchenCost recalculates recipe costs, food cost %, and price targets as your ingredient prices change.

If you want a faster way to protect margin, try KitchenCost.

Sources

• FRED/BLS series: Chicken breast (APU0000FF1101)
• FRED/BLS series: White rice (APU0000701312)
• FRED/BLS series: Eggs, Grade A large (APU0000708111)
• FRED/BLS series: Tomatoes, field grown (APU0000712311)
• BLS CPI News Release (latest)