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Restaurant Prep ROI Calculator

Find fast wins in your back of house. Enter your wage, burden, and baseline prep hours by task. The calculator estimates daily and annual net savings, Year-1 net benefit after CAPEX and subscriptions, and payback in months. Enter decimals for percentages. Example: 0.25 for 25%.
⬇️ Download Excel version — coming soon 📄 Make a copy in Google Sheets — coming soon 📚 Restaurant Series Hub

Global Inputs

  e.g., 0.25 = 25%     Need help estimating?    

Tip: “Prepped ingredient premium/day” = (prepped price − whole price) × daily units. Put 0 if you prep in-house; negative if prepped is cheaper.

Tasks

Enter hours as numbers. Enter reductions and adoption as decimals (0.30 = 30%).

Task Baseline hours/day Time reduction Yield improvement Adoption % Notes
Ranges What’s this?
Produce prep (peel/chop/dice)
Need help estimating?
Processors or pre-cut purchase
Protein portioning/trimming
Need help estimating?
Scales, portioners, trim guides
Sauces/bases (stir/simmer)
Need help estimating
Auto stirrers, combi, programmable
Assembly (salads/bowls/pizzas)
Need help estimating
Jigs or robotic modules
Dough (mix/proof/divide)
Need help estimating
Mixers, sheeters, dividers
Fry/griddle monitoring
Need help estimating?
Automated fryers/griddles
Cleaning/sanitizing
Need help estimating?
High-speed dishers, scrubbers

Results

Effective hourly labor cost
$0
Total baseline prep hours/day
0.00
Total hours saved per day
0.00
Labor $ saved per day
$0
Yield/waste $ saved per day
$0
Prepped ingredient premium per day
$0
Net $ saved per day
$0
Ongoing annual cost
$0
One-time installation cost
$0
Net $ saved per year
$0
Year 1 net benefit (after CAPEX & install)
$0
Payback period (months)
–

Notes: This tool is directional and depends on your inputs. Validate with a short time study in your kitchen, then adjust defaults.

Benchmarks & references (typical ranges)
Task Typical baseline hrs/day Typical time reduction Typical yield improvement Notes
Produce prep (peel/chop/dice) 1–4 30–60% 3–8% Pre-cut or processors reduce trim loss & labor
Protein portioning/trimming 0.5–2 20–35% 3–7% Portion control reduces over-portioning & waste
Sauces/bases (stir/simmer) 0.5–1.5 20–30% 0–3% Batching & automation curb scorch/overcook loss
Breading/fry station 0.5–1.5 25–50%+ 0–4% Automated breading/fry steps improve consistency
Dough (mix/proof/divide) 0.4–1.0 20–30% 0–2% Process control reduces rework & scrap
Cleaning/sanitizing 0.5–1.5 20–40% 0–1% Energy/water savings calculators help size models

How to estimate “Yield improvement”: Start from recent usage. If prepped inputs or tighter portion control reduce trim loss, waste, or over-portioning, convert that to a percent of the original input. Example: If you trimmed 30 lb/day before and now 28 lb, that’s ~6.7% improvement (2 ÷ 30 = 0.067). For proteins, weigh finished portions over a shift; if average drops from 5.6 oz to 5.4 oz with the same menu price, that’s ~3.6% improvement (0.2 ÷ 5.6).