How to Calculate Standard Recipes for Your Bakery Products

A standard recipe is the complete list of all raw materials, with their quantities, needed to make one unit of a product. In manufacturing, a materials list is a mandatory document. In Indonesia's small bakery (UMKM) sector, standard recipes are still often ignored because it's seen as too complicated.

Yet a correct standard recipe is the only way to know for sure: your cost of goods sold (COGS) per product, whether your selling price yields a healthy margin, and when to raise prices as ingredient costs change.

Example: Butter Croissant Standard Recipe

• High-protein flour: 55g @ Rp 14,000/kg = Rp 770
• Roll-in butter: 30g @ Rp 95,000/kg = Rp 2,850
• Granulated sugar: 8g @ Rp 16,000/kg = Rp 128
• Salt: 1g @ Rp 8,000/kg = Rp 8
• Instant yeast: 1.5g @ Rp 120,000/kg = Rp 180
• Egg (egg wash): 5g @ Rp 32,000/kg = Rp 160
• Total raw material per pc: Rp 4,096

3 Steps to Build an Accurate Standard Recipe

• Weigh raw materials for an actual production batch, don't estimate. Separate mixed ingredients (dough) from toppings/fillings.
• Calculate yield: 100g of raw dough doesn't yield 100g of finished product. Bread loses ±15-20% of its weight while baking (baking loss). Factor this into your standard recipe.
• Review the standard recipe every 3 months or when ingredient prices change by >5%. A recipe using old prices can make you sell at a loss without realizing it.

Manual Recipes vs Recipes in a POS System

A recipe in a spreadsheet must be updated manually every time an ingredient price changes, and it's never connected to the register. That means raw-material stock still has to be counted by hand in the warehouse.

A recipe integrated into the POS lets every register transaction deduct raw materials automatically per recipe. Owners can see remaining flour, butter, and egg stock in real time, without going to the warehouse.