ChefSums: Recipe Costing & GP

Cottage pie: how much it costs to make, per portion

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The pub-menu workhorse: beef mince braised with onion, carrot and celery under a cheddar-topped mash. Ten portions in a gastronorm, costed from wholesale case prices dated 7 September 2026 and re-checked 17 October 2026.

Cottage pie in an orange casserole dish, the mash browned on top
Photo: Cottage pie pot by CNEcija12345, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped and resized. A licensed photo of the dish, not the exact costing below.
Ingredients per portion£1.96
Batch of 10£19.62
Lowest price · 68% GP£7.36 inc VAT (£6.13 ex)
Premium · 75% GP£9.42 inc VAT (£7.85 ex)

The lowest price is the one that just reaches 68% GP, the UK food GP benchmark (UKHospitality × Christie & Co, 2022: 65.9–69% food GP across every segment). It covers the ingredients at a normal margin, not staff, rent or energy, and most cafés, pubs and takeaways charge more for simple dishes. Check what places near you charge. GP is worked out on the ex-VAT price.

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Ingredients and cost, 10 portions

IngredientPack pricePack sizeUsedCost
Beef mince£14.992000 g1500 g£11.24
Onions£7.4910000 g444 g£0.33
Carrots£7.4910000 g366 g£0.27
Celery (head)£13.9912 each1 each£1.17
Garlic£3.491000 g23 g£0.08
Tomato puree£7.493000 g60 g£0.15
Worcestershire sauce£3.35290 ml30 ml£0.35
Stock (bouillon powder)£10.991000 g30 g£0.33
Plain flour£12.9916000 g30 g£0.02
Frozen peas£5.292500 g300 g£0.63
Potatoes (chipping)£16.9925000 g3086 g£2.10
Unsalted butter£30.495000 g150 g£0.91
Whole milk£1.692000 ml150 ml£0.13
Mature cheddar£9.491000 g200 g£1.90
Batch total£19.62
Per portion (÷ 10)£1.96

Cost per line is pack price × (amount used ÷ pack size), the same sum the tool runs. Change one pack price and every line that uses it moves.

What it really costs: waste and staff time

Ingredients£1.96
Waste allowance, 5% (trim, ends, the odd one binned)£0.10
Staff time: 40 min hands-on for the batch of 10 at £12.71/hr + 25% on-cost£1.06
Food, waste and staff per portion£3.12

At the lowest price (£6.13 ex VAT) that is 51% of the price, before rent, energy and everything else. Many UK sites aim to keep food plus staff (prime cost) at or under 60–65% of sales. The staff line counts hands-on prep only, not unattended cooking, and uses the April 2026 National Living Wage; put your own rate, minutes and waste in the calculator's real cost section or the prime cost calculator. Every dish side by side: the UK dish cost index.

Method

  1. Sweat the diced onion, carrot and celery in a little of the butter until soft, then add the garlic.
  2. Brown the mince hard in batches so it colours rather than stews; drain excess fat.
  3. Stir in the flour and puree, cook out a minute, then add 1 litre of stock (30 g bouillon) and the Worcestershire sauce. Simmer 45 minutes until thick. Add the peas at the end; season.
  4. Boil the peeled potatoes, pass or mash with the rest of the butter and the warm milk; season.
  5. Layer the mince in a 1/1 gastronorm, fork the mash over, top with grated cheddar. Bake at 190 °C (375 °F) for 30-35 minutes until the top browns and the filling bubbles.

Costing notes

The mince is three-fifths of the plate cost, so the pack price on that one line moves the dish more than everything else together. The wholesale line found was 10% fat mince at £7.50 a kilo; a 20% fat retail pack was £6.50 a kilo the same day, so a leaner spec costs more, not less. Stock is costed as 30 g of bouillon powder per litre; if you make stock from bones, cost the bones and the gas instead.

Prep loss is costed in: each fresh vegetable line is the weight you buy, not the prepared weight that goes in the pan. Onions: 400 g peeled is 444 g as bought at 90% (onion yield); Carrots: 300 g peeled is 366 g as bought at 82% (carrot yield); Garlic: 20 g peeled is 23 g as bought at 87% (garlic yield); Potatoes: 2,500 g peeled is 3,086 g as bought at 81% (potato yield).

Where the prices came from

JJ Foodservice collection prices as shown on its public search pages on 7 September 2026, re-checked on 17 October 2026 (delivery prices run about £1-2 a case higher). The site does not label VAT on most lines: raw food is zero-rated in the UK, while oil, vanilla and alcohol carry standard-rate VAT. Where JJ had no line that day, a Tesco retail price is used and marked. Your supplier's price is the one that matters: open the recipe and type it in.

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