COGS (Cost of Goods Sold)
The direct cost of the ingredients and packaging that went into the items a restaurant sold in a period. Healthy F&B COGS is typically 28–35% of revenue depending on cuisine. Tracking it daily — not monthly — is what catches waste, theft and bad recipes early.
Deep dive: cogs (cost of goods sold)
Cost of goods sold is the only cost line in an F&B business that moves every single day, which is why measuring it monthly is the most expensive habit in the industry. A chain that discovers a 2-point COGS slip at month end has already served roughly thirty days of it; the same slip caught on day three is a supplier conversation, a portioning correction or a recipe fix worth a fraction of the loss.
There are two ways to arrive at the number and they answer different questions. Theoretical COGS multiplies each dish sold by its recipe cost — what the food should have cost. Actual COGS is opening stock plus purchases minus closing stock — what it did cost. The gap between them is variance, and variance is where over-portioning, waste, theft, unbilled staff meals and supplier short-deliveries live. A POS that only computes actual COGS can tell an operator that margin fell; only recipe-level deduction can tell them which dish, which station and which shift.
Formula
COGS = opening stock + purchases − closing stock; COGS % = COGS ÷ net revenue × 100
Worked example
Opening 84,000,000₫ + purchases 310,000,000₫ − closing 76,000,000₫ = COGS 318,000,000₫ on 940,000,000₫ revenue → 33.8%.
Theoretical COGS from recipes was 30.9%. The 2.9-point gap is 27,260,000₫ a month — roughly one full-time salary — and it is recoverable only if the system can attribute it to a dish and a station.
What is COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) used for in F&B operations?
In multi-outlet restaurant and F&B operations, cogs (cost of goods sold) is an essential component — directly affecting service speed, order accuracy and margin. See the related terms below to understand where it fits in the broader stack.
How does LOOP support COGS (Cost of Goods Sold)?
LOOP supports cogs (cost of goods sold) natively in its POS + KDS + inventory platform for Vietnamese F&B chains — no plugin or third-party integration required. It's one reason multi-outlet operators pick LOOP as their primary operations system.
