Fish Tacos (3 piece) Cost Calculator
Three corn-tortilla fish tacos with cabbage slaw, crema, and lime. Coastal/Mexican food truck typical food cost. Prefilled with US average ingredient costs. Edit any quantity or price to match what you actually pay, and the math updates as you type.
How much does it cost to make Fish Tacos (3 piece)?
About $3.35 for three fish tacos at foodservice prices, against a common $14 order, a 23.9% food cost. The 6 oz of cod is $2.40 of that. Corn tortillas, slaw, crema, lime, cilantro, and onion together come to 95 cents.
Where the money goes
| White fish fillet (cod) | 71.6% · $2.40 | |
|---|---|---|
| Crema/sauce | 9.9% · $0.33 | |
| Cabbage slaw mix | 9.0% · $0.30 | |
| Lime + cilantro + onion | 6.0% · $0.20 | |
| Corn tortillas | 3.6% · $0.12 |
What 50 of them return at different prices
| Your price | Food cost % | Over ingredients, each | Over ingredients, 50 |
|---|---|---|---|
| $10.50 | 31.9% | $7.15 | $357.50 |
| $14.00 US average | 23.9% | $10.65 | $532.50 |
| $17.50 | 19.1% | $14.15 | $707.50 |
Ingredients only. Labor, packaging, fuel, and stall or platform fees come out of these figures.
Price the fish and you have priced the taco. At 40 cents an ounce, $6.40 a pound for cod, the 6 oz portion is $2.40, 71.6% of the order. The tortillas, slaw, crema, and garnish add 95 cents and stay the same whatever fish goes inside them, so the food cost moves with the fish price dollar for dollar.
The menu says "fish", and the species behind that word is the lever the customer never sees. Swai, pollock, and tilapia usually cost less than the cod priced here, mahi-mahi usually costs more, and all of them make a good taco. Every dollar a pound on the fillet moves the order by 37.5 cents, about 2.7 points of food cost at $14. A fish that costs $2 a pound more takes the order from 23.9% to roughly 29% while the menu price stays the same. Pick the species on purpose, write it down, and re-cost the order whenever the supplier substitutes a different fish or changes the price.
Most food trucks buy fish frozen, and the case weight is not all fish. Fillets are glazed with ice and lose water as they thaw, so the ounces you actually cook are fewer than the ounces on the invoice; glaze alone is often 5-10% of the weight and sometimes much more. If a tenth of the case weight goes down the drain, each usable ounce costs about 44 cents instead of 40, and the order costs about 27 cents more than the calculator says. Weigh a thawed case once and put the real price per usable ounce into the calculator above.