For foods I buy all food together since it is shared - only room for one bottle of ketchup etc. I have done food two ways and the meetings I have had on daycare taxes basically says as long as you can justify your method as in there is really no right or wrong way to do it. I have in the past made up a sample menu and then costed it out and then multiplied by the number of meals served. I have also done an average where you take the full food budget for the year and then determine the number of daycare meals and the number of family meals (where 2 snacks = 1 meal) then divide by the number of total meals served to get the cost per meal and then multiply by number of daycare meals served. Sounds complicated but it is really just a few clicks of the calculator. In theory we are supposed to be recording attendance during the year and therefore able to determine meals served. This method only works partially in the sense that if you open a box of kraft dinner and serve 4 or only serve 3 cause one child was away it still costs you a box of kraft dinner for lunch since the left overs aren't enough to use the next day. Which is how the costed out menu method started. For the last two years I have done it both the menu method and the total meals served method and came out pretty much the same so guess either is effective.