Seafood Case-Pack & Yield Calculator

Why Seafood Yields Are Species-Specific

A whole fish on ice is not the weight that actually sells. Head, guts, fins, skin, and bone all come off before the fillet hits the case, and each species drops a different proportion at each step. Atlantic salmon dresses out around three-quarters of its whole weight and yields roughly half its whole weight as a skinned fillet. Cod and tilapia run leaner. Tuna sits high because its anatomy carries more meat per pound of body. The starter values in this tool are approximate, drawn from commonly-cited handbook figures, and meant to be edited against the yields your processor actually delivers — log a few real cuttings and replace them.

Ice, Packaging, and Net Cost

Fresh seafood is shipped wet and cold. A 100-pound case can easily carry 8–15 pounds of ice plus a few pounds of waxed liner and packaging. Costing the case at gross weight overstates the inventory and understates cost per saleable pound. The tool subtracts ice and packaging first to get a net received weight, then applies the species yield factor to get saleable pounds, then divides landed cost by saleable pounds. That is the only cost figure to responsibly mark up.

Display Window and Freshness

Each species also carries a typical case-display window — the number of days the product stays fresh enough to sell at full price after it lands. Counting down that window from the received date flags lots that are running short, so you know when to mark down, run a feature, move product into a prep recipe, or pull it. The tool reports days on hand and days remaining for every lot; remaining days at zero or below appear in red.

Comparing Lots on a Like Basis

When two trucks deliver the same species in different forms — say a whole salmon at one price and a pre-filleted salmon at another — the only honest comparison is dollars per saleable pound, after yield and after ice. The comparison panel ranks every lot in the session on that basis and highlights the cheapest as the best buy. A higher sticker price on the fillet receipt often wins after the whole-fish yield is applied.

Automating Seafood Receiving

If you’re already reading lot weights off a connected scale and writing landed cost into your accounting system, the next step is to close the loop: receive against the PO at gross, deduct ice and packaging automatically, apply the species yield factor, and write a cost-per-saleable-pound back to the POS item file before the case ever hits the floor. I build receiving-to-POS integration for seafood and meat departments. Companion tools: Meat Cutting Test Calculator, Margin & Markup Calculator, Landed Cost Calculator, and Case Pack Calculator.