The service
Total crew minutes available to prep for this service. Zero means no limit.
Minutes your busiest station can run. Zero means no limit.
What you can spend on ingredients for this service. Zero means no limit.
Share of each sale lost to card processing.
Pitch fee, commissary, fuel; it does not change the plan, only the total.
Menu item 1
What the customer pays.
Ingredients and packaging.
Crew minutes in the tightest prep window.
Zero if it needs no station time.
Pre-orders or must-have items.
Demand you expect. Zero means no limit.
Leave zero if you have no plan to compare.
Menu item 2
What the customer pays.
Ingredients and packaging.
Crew minutes in the tightest prep window.
Zero if it needs no station time.
Pre-orders or must-have items.
Demand you expect. Zero means no limit.
Leave zero if you have no plan to compare.
Menu item 3
What the customer pays.
Ingredients and packaging.
Crew minutes in the tightest prep window.
Zero if it needs no station time.
Pre-orders or must-have items.
Demand you expect. Zero means no limit.
Leave zero if you have no plan to compare.
Menu item 4
What the customer pays.
Ingredients and packaging.
Crew minutes in the tightest prep window.
Zero if it needs no station time.
Pre-orders or must-have items.
Demand you expect. Zero means no limit.
Leave zero if you have no plan to compare.
Menu item 5
What the customer pays.
Ingredients and packaging.
Crew minutes in the tightest prep window.
Zero if it needs no station time.
Pre-orders or must-have items.
Demand you expect. Zero means no limit.
Leave zero if you have no plan to compare.
Menu item 6
What the customer pays.
Ingredients and packaging.
Crew minutes in the tightest prep window.
Zero if it needs no station time.
Pre-orders or must-have items.
Demand you expect. Zero means no limit.
Leave zero if you have no plan to compare.
Leave an item's price at zero to leave it out.
Result
Questions truck owners ask
How many portions of each menu item should I prep?
Rank items by contribution (price after card fees, minus food cost), then prep the best one until a limit stops you: prep labor minutes, grill or fryer minutes, ingredient cash, or the demand you expect. When a limit binds, the answer changes, because a lower-priced item can earn more per scarce minute. The tool solves this exactly as a linear program.
What is a shadow price here?
It is what one more unit of a limit is worth: one more prep minute, one more grill or fryer minute, or one more dollar of ingredient cash. If prep time shows $3.75 a minute, paying a helper less than $225 an hour for that time raises profit that service.
Why does a popular item get zero portions?
Because minutes or dollars are better spent elsewhere. The tool shows the contribution per portion that item would need, everything else unchanged, before it earns a place.
Does it handle waste, spoilage or leftovers?
Only through the ceiling you set per item. Enter the portions you expect to sell, not the most you could make. Leftover value, spoilage, queue length and weather are yours to judge.
Is this food-safety, legal or financial advice?
No. It is arithmetic on prices, costs and times you type. Food-safety rules, permits and taxes vary by place; check them with the right authority or a qualified advisor.
Not decided
Whether your demand estimates will hold, waste and leftovers, food safety and holding times, permits, queue length, weather, taxes and financing. Each item is treated as one uniform portion with a fixed contribution.
Related tools: the food truck event margin calculator, the recipe costing calculator and the menu mix analyzer.