UK restaurant food cost and GP benchmarks
There is no single food cost percentage that fits every site. The best-sourced UK figure available is a survey of the 12 months to December 2021, in which food gross profit clustered in the mid-to-high 60s. Use it to sanity-check your own numbers, not as a target handed down from outside.
In the UKHospitality × Christie & Co Benchmarking Report 2022, food gross margin across the whole survey was 67% — a food cost of 33% of net sales. Every one of its eight market segments fell between 65.9% and 69% food GP. Read that as evidence about one sample in one year, and calculate your own theoretical and actual figures on net sales before comparing.
Two different numbers are both called “food cost”
Most arguments about benchmarks are really two people using the same phrase for two different calculations. Keep them apart:
| Dish (theoretical) food cost | Period (actual) food cost | |
|---|---|---|
| Numerator | Recipe cost of one portion | Food COGS for the period: opening stock + purchases − closing stock, adjusted consistently for credits and transfers |
| Denominator | Net selling price of that dish | Net food sales for the same period |
| What it tells you | What the dish should cost if the spec is followed | What the kitchen did cost, including waste, over-portioning, comps and theft |
| What moves it | Supplier prices, yields, recipe spec, menu price | All of the above, plus everything that happens between the walk-in and the plate |
A survey benchmark like the one below is a period, actual figure. Comparing it against a single dish's theoretical cost is comparing two different things, and the gap between them is usually the most useful number you own.
GP is measured on the ex-VAT price
Gross profit percentage is (net selling price − cost) ÷ net selling price, where the net selling price is the menu price with VAT stripped out. The UK standard rate is currently 20% (GOV.UK, VAT rates), so a standard-rated inc-VAT price is divided by 1.2.
A £14 dish is £14 ÷ 1.2 = £11.6667 net. If the plate costs £3.85, gross profit is £7.8167, which is 67.0%. Divide the same £3.85 into the £14 the guest paid and you get 72.5% — a dish flattered by 5.5 points, because you measured it against money that belongs to HMRC.
Which rate applies is a question about the supply, not about the ingredient. Restaurant and café meals, other on-premises consumption and qualifying hot takeaway food are standard-rated; cold takeaway food is generally zero-rated (HMRC Notice 709/1). On the cost side, most food bought into a kitchen is zero-rated, but confectionery, savoury snacks, ice cream, most soft drinks and all alcoholic drinks are standard-rated (HMRC Notice 701/14). A VAT-registered business normally costs on ex-VAT prices because it recovers input VAT; a business that cannot recover the VAT must use the price it actually paid.
Run your own numbers on the free GP calculator — it does the VAT stripping for you.
Where the numbers on this page come from
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Publisher | UKHospitality and Christie & Co |
| Report | The UKHospitality Christie & Co Benchmarking Report 2022 (abridged edition, PDF), published 26 July 2022 |
| Measurement period | The 12 months to December 2021 — a pandemic-affected year with restricted trading in the first half |
| Sample | 54 companies, covering 4,791 licensed managed outlets; a further 15 hotel companies covered 357 hotel outlets |
| Denominator | Gross profit margin on food sales, measured against net turnover |
| Earlier editions cited | Benchmarking Report 2018 (40 companies, 3,548 managed outlets) |
The report describes its own sample as “significantly above the level typically obtained by independent trade surveys and commentators”. It is not a census of UK hospitality, and it is not this year's data.
Food GP by segment — historical survey evidence, not 2026 targets
Source: UKHospitality × Christie & Co Benchmarking Report 2022, “Gross Profit Margins by Market Segment”. Values are printed as shown in the report; the one-decimal figures are the report's own precision.
| Segment | Food GP | Food cost equivalent | Wet GP |
|---|---|---|---|
| Accommodation-led | 69% | 31% | 64% |
| Community local pubs | 68% | 32% | 65% |
| Food-led pubs | 68% | 32% | 65% |
| High street venues | 66% | 34% | 68% |
| Nightclubs | 66.0% | 34.0% | 72.7% |
| Wine bars | 66% | 34% | 69% |
| Casual dining | 65.9% | 34.1% | 72.1% |
| Entire survey | 67% | 33% | 66% |
The spread across segments is narrow — under three and a half points of food GP separates the top segment from the bottom. That is the useful finding: in this sample, trading style moved wet margin far more than it moved food margin.
The trend line, and the VAT asterisk that matters
Survey-average food gross margin was 63.8% in the 2017 report and 64.2% in the 2018 report, which described that as “a 0.4ppts increase from the previous high”. In the 2022 report it reached 67%, having “improved by 3.1ppts”, and exceeded wet margin for the first time in the survey's history.
Do not read that jump as a permanent structural gain. The report itself attributes it to pricing increases taken to offset operating costs, and to “the temporary VAT reduction that applied to the sector during the survey period”. Hospitality food sales carried a temporary reduced VAT rate of 5% from July 2020 and 12.5% from 1 October 2021, returning to the standard 20% on 1 April 2022 — so a lower VAT deduction left more net sales in the denominator for part or all of that measurement year. A cautious planning figure for UK food GP is the mid-60s; treat anything above it as something you have to earn each year, not a level the sector sits at by default.
Three widely repeated claims that this data does not support
Much of the “UK food cost percentage” advice circulating online restates US operating conventions without adjusting for UK VAT or UK trading. Three specific claims are worth checking against the survey:
- “Run 25% food cost / 75% GP.” No segment in the 2022 survey reached 75% food GP; the highest was 69%. Pricing a whole UK menu to a 75% target puts you above comparable high-street pricing.
- “Keep prime cost to 28–35%.” That is the US prime-cost convention, which combines food and all labour. In UK operating language, food cost alone commonly runs around 30–35% of net sales. Mixing the two frameworks makes both unusable.
- “The margin is in the drinks.” In this survey food GP (67%) edged wet GP (66%) for the first time. Drinks still earn more cash per minute of labour, and nightclubs and casual dining did run much higher wet margins — but the blanket percentage claim is not what this dataset shows.
The tied-pub exception
The 2022 report analysed estates by lease type. Estates held mainly on commercial (free-of-tie) leases ran a wet margin of 68.9% against 61.2% for estates held mainly on tied industry leases — 7.7 points. Food margins were near parity: 67.1% free-of-tie against 67.3% tied, which the report explains by tied tenants being free to choose their own food suppliers.
If you are tied, food is the margin lever the tie does not touch. The report also warns that “the sample size for tied leases is relatively limited, and therefore caution should be taken in reviewing the data”, so treat that gap as directional.
How to use a benchmark without being used by it
- Compare like with like: the same period length, the same revenue category, the same net-sales denominator.
- Look at the cash movement as well as the percentage. A percentage can worsen while cash gross profit grows, and a menu-wide price rise flatters the percentage without selling one more cover.
- If you are outside the range, work through the causes in order — selling price, yields, portion control, sales mix, waste and stock accuracy — rather than repricing first.
- Individual dishes can and should sit outside the band. A 60% GP dish selling forty covers a night out-earns a 72% dish selling three; check the blended figure.
When this table is the wrong comparison
- A new site. Sales mix has not settled, so the actual figure moves week to week for reasons that have nothing to do with costing.
- Mixed food and drink revenue reported as one line. The blend hides both numbers.
- Delivery. If platform commission sits inside your cost of sales, your food cost percentage is not measuring the same thing this survey measured.
- Gross till sales as the denominator. Comparing a cost against VAT-inclusive sales understates food cost percentage every time.
- A different year. This is 2021 data published in 2022. Ingredient inflation, wage costs and the VAT return to 20% have all moved since.
Work out your own figures
Cost the dish first — see how to calculate food cost per portion — then price it against a target GP on the GP calculator and against the menu-pricing guide. Prove the theoretical figure against reality with a food stock take and actual food cost.
Track where you actually land, weekly, with the Weekly GP & Food Cost tracker — or cost the menu dish by dish with the Food Cost & Menu Pricing template.
Source publication date: 26 July 2022 (UKHospitality × Christie & Co Benchmarking Report 2022, covering the 12 months to December 2021).
Page checked against sources: 6 September 2026.
Run the free calculator → · See the templates → · Save your recipes free →