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Margin Drift Calculator

Ingredient prices creep up. Your sell prices don't. See how much profit quietly leaks away between the day you priced a product and today — the hidden cost of a stale spreadsheet.

Works for bakeries, caterers, home bakers, meal prep, market stalls — any food business.

Your product (a typical one)

Use one representative product. The result scales with how many you sell.

How costs have drifted
Months since you last re-costed / re-priced
0 36
12 months
This is an estimate that applies a steady inflation rate to one product to show the scale of drift — not an exact audit. Enter the numbers that match your own suppliers.
Silent margin loss
You're losing about
—
per month · — a year
Food cost then
—
Food cost now
—
Profit/unit then
—
Profit/unit now
—

Stop the drift

FoodCore keeps every recipe cost live — update a supplier price once and every product re-costs itself, so your margins never quietly slip. From £19/mo.

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What is margin drift?

Margin drift is the profit you lose without noticing when ingredient costs rise but your sell prices stay the same. You priced a product to hit a healthy margin, but months later your flour, butter and packaging all cost more — and unless you've re-priced, every sale now makes less than you think. Because it happens a few pennies at a time, most small food businesses only spot it when a whole product line is barely breaking even.

Cost today = Original cost × (1 + inflation)^(months ÷ 12)

Why spreadsheets cause it

A spreadsheet freezes your costs on the day you built it. It has no idea a supplier put their prices up last week, so it keeps showing the old, flattering number. Keeping it honest means manually re-costing every recipe every time any ingredient moves — which almost nobody has time to do. So the gap between your spreadsheet and reality widens, silently, month after month.

How often should you re-cost?

There's no legal rule, but a good guide is to review costs whenever a key ingredient price changes, and at minimum every quarter. In periods of high food inflation, monthly is safer. The bigger the gap between re-costing, the more margin drifts — which is exactly what the tool above estimates.

Stop guessing — keep costs live

This calculator gives you a snapshot of the damage. FoodCore fixes the cause: update a supplier price once and every recipe that uses that ingredient recalculates instantly, so you always know your true margin and can re-price the day costs move.

Free recipe cost calculator Recipe management software Recipe costing for bakeries Food business profit margins

Keep your margins from drifting

FoodCore recalculates every recipe cost the moment an ingredient price changes, so you always price on today's numbers — not last year's. From £19/month.

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