Economic Simulator for Transformation of Vegetable Ready Meals and Mixed Preparations

The Economic Simulator for Ready-to-Eat Vegetable Dishes and Mixed Preparations is a tool designed to accurately analyze the profitability of complex plant-based productions, where multiple components are cooked, blended, and packaged into ready-to-eat portions. The app combines ingredients, processes, yield, packaging, and retail price into a single calculation, providing key indicators per portion and per kilogram.

Purpose and Utility

The aim is to reliably estimate the real cost of each batch and the economic margin relative to the selling price, so as to:

• verify the convenience of the proposed recipe and weight;
• identify the most impactful cost items (ingredients, energy, containers, labor);
• align the price per portion with profitability and market positioning objectives.

Main Features

• Entry of main ingredients with quantities and prices: vegetables, grains/pasta/rice, plant-based proteins/cooked legumes;
• Adding additional costs in euros: oils and sauces, spices and additives;
• Considering costs of energy, containers, labor, and other miscellaneous costs;
• Setting the transformation yield to account for cooking, evaporation, and waste;
• Calculating portion weight and selling price per portion;
• Immediate output of:
  • finished product (kg),
  • portions obtained,
  • unit cost per portion and per finished kg,
  • total revenue,
  • net margin and percentage margin.

Results Structure

The results are presented in a container with class “result”, with a detailed table for:

• ingredients and their costs;
• process and packaging costs;
• totals and economic indicators.
  There is also a button to copy the results and insert them into internal records or working documents.

Practical Advantages

• Allows for quick checking of the economic sustainability of new recipes or weights;
• Helps define consistent pricing lists aligned with target margins;
• Facilitates comparison between alternative scenarios (ingredient variation, yield, portion weight, price);
• Reduces estimation errors and speeds up batch planning.

Areas of Use

Ideal for:

• kitchens and delicatessens producing bowl meals, protein salads, vegetable first courses, cooked side dishes;
• agricultural businesses with transformation kitchens;
• third-party producers and cooperatives;
• consultants and technicians analyzing costs and margins of ready meals.

Usage Tips

• Set a realistic yield based on evaporation and cleaning waste to reduce differences between theoretical and actual results;
• Choose a portion weight consistent with the sales format and check the resulting margin;
• Evaluate the impact of containers and labor: they often affect single-serve portions more than expected;
• Save results by copying them into your record to create a useful historical database for management control.

Conclusions

The Economic Simulator for Ready-to-Eat Vegetable Dishes and Mixed Preparations provides a clear, numerical, and up-to-date view of the profitability of ready meals.
Easy to use and flexible in configuration, it helps make informed decisions on recipes, portions, and prices, improving the economic management and competitiveness of plant-based productions.