Which operator are you?
Five Problems Every Food Operator Faces — And What We Do About Each One.
Whether You're Just Starting or Running Your 10th Season
From Receipt to True Net Profit in Five Steps
Upload Your Receipts
Drop your Sam's Club, GFS, Sysco, or any supplier receipt. Our AI reads every line item — including condiment packets, napkins, and bags — and adds them to your ingredient cost library automatically. Every time prices change, your recipe costs update with them.
Build Your Recipes
Build every menu item down to the last condiment packet. MyFoodCostIQ calculates your exact cost per serving, your food cost percentage, and your profit per plate — in real time as you build. It even suggests the right sell price based on your target food cost.
Record Your Events
Upload your Toast, Square, or Clover POS report after every event. The system reads your sales totals automatically. Then enter your costs — event fees, labor, propane, generator fuel, bank fees, everything. MyFoodCostIQ calculates your true net profit: what actually went in your pocket.
Know Your Numbers
Every event, every cost, every ingredient — tracked all year. Run your annual report at tax time and hand your accountant exactly what they need. Schedule C line references included for every cost category.
Stay Ready All Season
The Season Startup Wizard walks you through every check, every piece of equipment, and every supply you need before your first event. The Equipment Maintenance Tracker keeps your service schedule on time. The Readiness Dashboard shows you at a glance whether your trailer is ready to roll — every single day of the season.
Most Software Forgets. MyFoodCostIQ Remembers.
Every event you run builds a data set that makes your next season more profitable.
Named Event History
When you're planning the Hamilton Street Fair for the third time, the system finds the last two years automatically. Real sales numbers, not averages. Last year's weather, competition, what you ran out of — all right there at Step 3 of your order.
Year-Over-Year Comparison
The Year-Over-Year report shows every recurring event side by side across seasons. Net profit, food cost %, prime cost % — all compared with directional arrows showing whether you're improving or declining. Auto-generated insights tell you what the numbers mean.
Factor Tagging
After every event, log what affected your sales — the heat wave that slowed the first two hours, the Memorial Day crowd that pushed you 20% above average, the equipment failure that cost you 90 minutes. The system resurfaces those notes when you're planning the same event next year.
Starting a Food Business? Start Here.
From empty trailer to first event — without the $5,000 of mistakes most new operators make in their first season.
Setup Interview
Tell us your concept, equipment, and service style. MyFoodCostIQ builds your operation around your actual business — not a generic template.
Smart Equipment & Supply Lists
Personalized smallwares, propane, fuel, safety, and POS supply lists based on your real menu and equipment. No generic “starter kit” PDF — actual quantities.
Recipes Priced Before You Open
Build every menu item with real cost-per-serving and target food cost % before you set a single sell price. Open day one knowing every plate makes money.
Catering Is a Different Beast. Now You Have a Tool For It.
Trailer service is one workflow. A 150-person wedding with a per-person rate, travel fee, gratuity, and a client expecting a real proposal — that's another. MyFoodCostIQ handles both.
One Place For The Whole Job
Client info, venue, guest count, service style, menu, financials, logistics — all captured in a single setup page. No more sticky notes, no more “wait, what did we quote them?”
Live P&L While You Quote
Watch net profit and margin update in real time as you adjust per-person rate, travel fee, gratuity, equipment, and labor hours. Stop quoting jobs that lose money before you ever sign the contract.
Client signature
Caterer signature
One-Click Client Proposal PDF
Branded, signature-ready proposal with full pricing breakdown, deposit terms, and balance-due date. Send it from your phone five minutes after the call — while the client is still excited.
Everything You Need. Nothing You Don't.
Smart Alerts & Warnings
Your dashboard watches every KPI in the background. Prime cost creeping up, food cost over target, missing operating costs, order guides not built — you get a plain-English warning before it costs you money.
Quick Entry Mode
Three numbers. 30 seconds. Done. Enter sales, food cost, and labor right after an event and instantly see your Prime Cost % — the single most important number in your operation. Full detail when you want it. Quick Entry when you need it fast.
AI Receipt Reading
Drop any receipt — Sam's Club, GFS, Sysco, handwritten. AI extracts every line item in seconds.
Recipe Cost Builder
Build recipes down to the fraction. Every condiment packet, wrapper, and napkin counted.
True Net Profit Calculator
Not gross profit. Not estimated profit. True net profit after every dollar that went out.
Inventory and Variance
Pre and post event counts show you exactly where money is leaking — waste, over-portioning, or theft.
Par Stock and Order Guide
Know exactly what to order before every event. Never run out. Never over-buy.
Tax-Ready Reports
Year-end reports with Schedule C line references. Hand it to your accountant and you're done.
Season Startup Wizard
A personalized pre-season checklist built around your specific equipment and operation. Never show up to an event missing something again.
Equipment Maintenance Tracker
Track every piece of equipment, every service date, and every maintenance cost. Get alerts when service is due before it becomes a breakdown.
Catering Event Manager
Full client, venue, menu, and financial setup with live P&L sidebar and one-click client proposal PDF. Catering is its own workflow — finally.
Catering Logistics Auto-Calc
Propane (1 lb / burner-hour) and generator fuel (0.5 gal/hr) calculated automatically from your equipment list and event hours. No more cocktail-napkin math.
Event History — Plan From Real Data, Not Guesses
When you've run the same event before, MyFoodCostIQ finds it. Last year's Hamilton Street Fair sales, food cost, what you ran out of, what factors helped or hurt — all surfaced automatically when you're planning this year's order.
Tag What Happened. Remember It Forever.
After every event, log what affected your sales — weather, competition, holiday weekends, equipment issues. Next year, those notes surface automatically so you never plan blind again.
Is This Event Getting Better or Worse?
The Year-Over-Year report compares the same recurring event across every season — net sales, food cost %, prime cost %, profit margin, and operating costs side by side. With an auto-generated insights panel that tells you exactly what the numbers mean.
Non-Food Supplies — Tracked, Ordered, and Sourced
Track par levels for packaging, cleaning supplies, smallwares, and safety equipment. Generate reorder lists automatically when supplies drop below par. Plus: recommended suppliers with direct links to Amazon, WebstaurantStore, Toast, Square, and Clover.
Export Your Counts Directly to Square or Clover
After every inventory count, download a CSV formatted for your POS — ready to import in 3 minutes. Keep your POS inventory honest without re-entering a single number manually.
Know Your Sell Price Before You Set It
Plug in any recipe and get a recommended sell price built around your real cost-per-serving and target food cost %. Stop pricing by what the truck down the street charges — price by what actually keeps you profitable.
See Which Menu Items Actually Make You Money
Your weighted food cost % across every item you sell — ranked from best to worst margin. Spot the bestsellers that are quietly losing money and the sleepers worth pushing harder.
680+ Credit Score?
An unsecured business line of credit may be available — no collateral required. Free conversation with Terry at JT Capital Advisors, the lending firm behind MyFoodCostIQ.
Learn More →Where food operators lose money — and how MyFoodCostIQ fixes every leak.
Built By an Operator, For Operators
My name is Terry May. I have been in the lending and financial services industry for 25 years — and I run TMay's Food Shack, a mobile food trailer based in Waynesville, Ohio.
When I started the trailer I did what most operators do. I guessed at my food cost. I had a rough idea of what things cost. I thought I was profitable because customers kept coming back and the register kept ringing.
Then I actually ran the numbers.
I built MyFoodCostIQ because I could not find a system that did what I actually needed — not just recipe costing, but true event-by-event profit tracking that accounted for every dollar in and every dollar out. Propane. Generator fuel. The event fee I paid at 6am to get my spot. The card processing fees Toast takes on every transaction. The bank deposit fee nobody thinks about.
When you know your true net profit after every event, you stop guessing and start making decisions. Which events are worth doing. Which menu items to push. When to raise prices. When to walk away from an event that looks good on paper but isn't worth your Saturday.
Whether you are buying your first trailer or running your fifth season, the problems are the same — you work hard, customers love your food, and you still are not sure if you are actually making money. MyFoodCostIQ fixes that. It tracks everything that matters, reminds you of everything that needs to be done, and gives you the numbers to make real business decisions. This is the system I wish I had from day one.
— Terry May, Owner TMay's Food Shack, Founder MyFoodCostIQ
Simple Pricing. No Surprises.
Includes a 1-hour personal onboarding call with Terry May — your recipes, your events, your real numbers. From day one.
After your free 14-day trial. Billed monthly. Cancel anytime.
- Lock in $49/month forever — founding member rate
- Price increases as we add features — your rate never does
- Your data is always yours — export everything anytime
Everything included. No tiers. No add-ons.
- Quick Entry mode — record any event in 30 seconds with Prime Cost %
- Unlimited receipt uploads with AI extraction
- Unlimited recipes and ingredients
- Unlimited sales days and events
- Full inventory and variance tracking
- Par stock and order guide
- Supplier management — Sam's Club, GFS, Restaurant Depot, and more
- Smart Order Generator with per-supplier shopping lists
- Season Startup Wizard with personalized checklist
- Equipment maintenance tracking and service alerts
- Non-food supply ordering and par stock
- Operational Readiness Dashboard
- Toast, Square, Clover, and manual POS support
- Tax-ready annual reports with Schedule C references
- Full catering event manager with live P&L and proposal PDFs
- Event history matching — plan from last year's actual data
- Performance factor tagging — log what helped or hurt each event
- Year-over-year event comparison reports
- Supply management with par levels and reorder alerts
- POS inventory export — Square and Clover CSV formats
- Affiliate partner links for supplies and POS systems
- Day-one startup setup wizard — equipment, supplies, recipes, par stock
- Built-in food cost training
- Email and in-app reminders
- All future updates included
- Your data is always yours
No credit card required for the trial. Setup fee collected after your call is scheduled.
Founding member pricing. The $49/month rate locks in permanently on your first paid month.
Questions? Email terry@foodcostiq.com — usually responds within a few hours.
Try It Free or See It Live
Free Trial
14 days. Full access. Demo data pre-loaded so you see a fully working system from minute one — not a blank screen.
Personal Demo
Want to see it with your own menu and your numbers before you commit? Book a 30-minute call. No pitch — just a live walkthrough of what MyFoodCostIQ looks like for your specific operation. Bring your last supplier receipt and your most recent event sales number.