Food enthusiast reveals exactly how many shrimp you need to eat at Red Lobster to make a profit on the chain’s all-you-can-eat deal

A foodie has calculated how much shrimp you’ll need to consume using Red Lobster’s all-you-can-eat deal to make the most of the meal.

The woman – known only as Rachel – posted a TikTok video with her handwritten cost-to-profit breakdown and a graph to let her followers know how many orders would help them get the most bang for their buck.

In her video, she compares the costs of people making the shrimp bowls themselves instead of going to Red Lobster to find out how much food a customer would have to eat at the restaurant to make the deal worth it.

Based on the internet phenomenon called “girl math,” many TikTok users have dubbed Rachel’s financial crisis “shrimp math.”

Rachel posted a TikTok video with her handwritten cost-to-profit breakdown and a graph to let her followers know how many orders would give them the most bang for their buck

She began her clip by showing a screenshot of the brand’s meals behind her and announcing, “This is how much shrimp you need to eat at Red Lobster for their endless shrimp deal to not only break even, but also make a profit on your short-term investment and I’m going to use math to prove it to you.’

In the video, she points to her screenshot showing the restaurant chain’s Mix and Match menu options and says, “So this is the endless shrimp deal everyone is talking about.”

“And I’m not going to go through and read everything, but you get what I mean.

‘There are many options. This deal also includes a side of your choice.’

Rachel’s next photo switches to raw shrimp in the frozen aisle with a $9.99 sign above it and she says, “And to figure out how much shrimp you actually need to eat for it to make sense, I’m going to use how much it would cost to make this whole thing at home.”

The next screenshot shows Red Lobster’s Cheddar Bay Biscuits and she adds, “And no, I’m not forgetting the cookies.”

Rachel then shows a picture of her cost-benefit analysis and says, “Let’s do the math and see how much we should eat.

“So we’re assuming there are 30 shrimp in the package I bought for $9.99.

“To figure out how much shrimp you actually need to eat for it to make sense, I’m going to figure out how much it would cost to make at home,” she said, adding up to a total of $15.98.

Using this supermarket as an example, Rachel says: ‘So let’s assume there are 30 prawns in the pack I bought for €9.99’

Foodie enthusiasts were shocked to learn from Rachel’s chart that if you order the ‘endless’ meal 15 times, you’ll end up paying $1.76 per bowl

“The cheddar biscuits I bought at Target cost $5.99.

“The total amount spent is $15.98. And we assume that the price you pay is for yourself.

“The endless shrimp cost $20. We add tax and tip and our total bills come to $26.40.

“But with the cost you pay at Red Lobster, we had to talk about the value-added items, which basically means it’s free.

“So that includes cheddar biscuits and a side of your choice with the shrimp and from the due diligence I did I concluded that you get six shrimp per bowl and you get three bowls to start with and then it drops to two.

‘Say you get three bowls to start with and assume there are six shrimp in each, then you will have 18 shrimp on your first order.

‘On your second order, because the number of bowls increases to two, we get six times two equals twelve shrimp.

‘So just after our second order, we have consumed 30 shrimp in five bowls at this point. And let’s not forget our value-added items included in the price (cheddar biscuits and side dish choice).”

To better illustrate her cost breakdown, Rachel created a graph with the number of bowls on the X-axis and the price per bowl on the Y-axis.

Rachel’s graph shows that as the number of bowls increases, the cost per bowl decreases.

“All in all, I think that after just two orders you will make a profit and be in the green, because even after the second order you can order the third and take it with you,” she said.

The foodie proudly concludes, “And because my graphs are phenomenal, here’s another graph for you that shows that at bowl fifteen you only pay $1.76 per bowl.

“I think this whole thing is a great deal. So if you’re ever craving shrimp, I’d go to Red Lobster.”

At the time of writing, Rachel’s video had received more than 380 comments, with many commenters appreciating her math

Her video has 264,500 views and 16,500 likes so far.

At the time of writing, Rachel’s video had received more than 380 comments, with many commenters appreciating her math.

One person wrote: ‘Math girl, Red Lobster is basically paying you to eat their shrimp.’

Another added: “This is the word problem my math book told me about and I thought would never be real life.”

“Why don’t they teach us this in school,” a third commented.

A fourth added: ‘Yay! I won by six bowls.”

“$20 if I don’t have to cook it and clean it up is a great deal,” someone else wrote.

A fifth commented: ‘That’s shrimp math.’