This section covers costing procedures in this order: chicken, turkey, geese, small birds, and duckling.
One table is referenced in the discussion in this chapter:
✦ Poultry
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HICKENChicken is by far the most popular type of poultry and is marketed in numerous ways.
For example, you can buy a whole chicken with or without its giblets. Giblets consist of the heart, gizzard, and liver; the neck is also typically included with giblets. When sold without giblets, the bird is designated as a WOG (“without giblets”). Because many menus do not market every part of a bird, poultry processors “fabricate” whole birds into market forms such as breasts, half breasts, legs, thighs, and wings. Addi-tionally, you can order these items with further refinements. Breasts can be had with-out skin or bones or with skin but no bones. You can even buy just the interior breast muscle, known as a tender or tenderloin. Legs and thighs are available joined, separated, or completely skinned and boned. Wings are sold whole and in pieces: the first joint is called a drumette; the second joint is called, simply, the second joint. Finally, you can buy these special market forms already breaded, seasoned, or marinated. Of course, you can buy half chickens or quarters as well.
The Poultry table lists the yields that you can obtain from a whole fryer/broiler chicken weighing nearly 59 ounces, with giblets. It also lists piece yields for three weights of turkeys. You will find the Poultry Costing Worksheet 13 of help in calculating the
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I N T H E W O R K B O O K Part II, the Workbook, has one worksheet to help you cost poultry products:
✦ Poultry, Costing Worksheet 13
or without bones or skin. You simply designate the exact size and trim you want to receive and do a piece-count costing, whereby you simply divide the cost of the box by 24 to get the cost per each.
COSTING PARTS OF WHOLE BIRDS If you process whole birds into their respec-tive parts—breasts, wings, thighs, and legs—you cost these parts by dividing the adjusted cost of the bird by the part’s yield percentages. The Poultry table on chicken shows the weight yields of these parts. They add up to 67.9 percent of the original AP weight. You use this percentage to “adjust” the purchase price of the bird. For instance, if a bird costs $4.04 coming in the door, so to speak, its adjusted cost will be $5.95:
$4.04 ⴜ 0.679 ⴝ $5.95
Then, when you want to calculate the cost of a certain part, say, the whole breast (both halves with skin and bones), you multiply the whole breast’s yield percentage of 29.6 percent by the adjusted cost of the whole bird. If you do this with the wings, legs, and thighs, those costs will add up to the original price of the bird. This approach works as well when you first deduct the dollar value of the usable trim, the giblets, and backs from the AP cost. Simply follow two steps:
1. Subtract the value of those usable items from the AP cost per bird.
2. Divide by the total yield percentage of 67.9 percent to arrive at the adjusted cost per bird.
Example
Given:
One AP chicken costs $4.04 (not deducting giblet costs). Its breasts, wings, legs, and thighs represent 67.9 percent of its original weight. Now do the math.1. Adjust the AP cost by dividing the AP cost ($4.04) by the parts’ yield percentage (0.679):
$4.04 ⴜ 0.679 ⴝ $5.95
This is the adjusted cost per bird.
2. Multiply the various parts’ yield percentage by the adjusted cost of $5.95.
The Poultry table shows the yield for both breast halves is 29.6 percent of the AP weight, so:
$5.95 ⴛ 0.296 ⴝ $1.76 Therefore,
✦ The yield for both wings is 10.7 percent of the AP weight:
$5.95 ⴛ 0.107 ⴝ $0.64 marketing terminology
and describes various cuts and market forms of poultry items, so be sure to have that reference handy when you are costing and planning purchases of poultry.
$4.04, which equals the AP cost of the bird. If you first deduct the cost of the giblets, neck, and back from the original AP cost of the bird, the results will still add up to the lower adjusted cost of the AP bird. (The Poultry Costing Worksheet shows you how to cost these parts even further, including deducting the giblet costs first.)
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URKEYThe method just described for chicken works for costing turkey parts as well. Simply plug in the yield percentages for the turkey parts to cost the turkey’s various pieces.
COSTING PARTS OF TURKEY Because of the popularity of turkey breast meat, the breasts are often sold as separate items, as are legs. Legs are typically packed whole, and you cost these by the each using the piece-count approach: Divide the cost of the purchase unit, such as a case of legs, by the number of legs in the case.
Breasts are sold with or without the skin and bones and with or without wing meat or rib meat attached. A raw, bone-in breast yields 73.6 percent of its AP weight in raw, skinless, boneless meat. To cost this meat, divide the cost per AP pound by 0.736. The same breast will yield 50 percent of its AP weight in cooked meat, so to cost the cooked meat, divide the AP cost per pound by 0.50.
Turkeys are sold as hens (females) and as toms (males). A tom is generally larger than a hen, though hens are now marketed in the 22- to 24-pound range, which is well into the market weight range for toms. As a percentage of its weight, a tom has more dark meat than a hen and a hen more light meat than a tom. The Poultry table indi-cates that the tom has more breast meat than a hen; but note that the tom listed in the table is bigger and more mature, resulting in a larger, more developed breast than the smaller, younger hens. The ratio of light to dark meat is 1.3 to 1 for a tom and 1.6 to 1 for a hen of equal size. Hens generally yield more usable meat per AP pound because their bones are smaller than those of toms.
COSTING COOKED TURKEY When pricing a banquet featuring cooked turkey meat, divide the cost per pound by the cooked meat yield percentage. The carving yield for a cooked 22-pound hen is 36.3 percent. If the AP cost per pound is $0.79, divide that cost by the cooked and carved yield percentage:
$0.79 per lb.ⴜ 0.363 ⴝ $2.176 per lb.
✦ A cooked ounce will cost one-sixteenth of the cooked pound cost:
$2.176 per lb.ⴜ 16 oz./lb. ⴝ $0.136 per cooked oz.
✦ A 5-ounce portion will cost you five times that, or $0.68.
You will get a 41 percent cooked meat yield from a roasted turkey if you not only carve the meat from the cooked bird but also hand-pull the remaining meat from its bones.
$0.79 per lb.ⴜ 0.41 ⴝ $1.93 per lb.
$1.93 per lb.ⴜ 16 oz./lb. ⴝ $0.12 per cooked oz.
A 5-ounce portion will now cost $0.60, which is 8 cents less and translates to a reduction in cost of nearly 12 percent. How so? The savings of $0.08 divided by the original portion cost of $0.68 equals 0.1176, which is 11.76 percent.
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EESEA young goose weighing 11 pounds will be composed of the following cuts as per-centages of its AP weight:
✦ Back and ribs: 21 percent
✦ Breasts: 24 percent, including the bone and skin (Actual breast meat is about 12 percent.)
✦ Legs and thighs: 22 percent
✦ Wings: 16 percent
✦ Neck, gizzard, heart: 14 percent
✦ Liver: 3 percent (unless purposefully fattened for sale as foie gras)
Cost the various pieces by using the same method described for chicken or turkey pieces.