I am revisiting my extra cheese weights and have concluded I am goging to have two ‘levels’ of extra cheese - one for standard topping price, and one for premium price. I have been selling just the premium priced one for several years, and finally woke up to selling a smaller portion to move more volume. I am looking at 16" / 12" / 10" pizzas. Here is what I am thinking; I can sell a +30% load for 1.75/1.25/.65 (reg topping) rate . . . . . and sell a +50% load for (premium topping) 3.00/2.00/1.00. I hit about a 22% to 24% COGS at this pricing.
Does this all sound reasonable? Too overworked? Completely lunatic? What are you guys selling and what weights and COG?
That pricing sounds a little complex. Why have two different levels of toppings? Are your customers asking for this?
If you are looking at this from a COGS standpoint than I would shoot for 20% because toppings are what a lot of pizzeria’s use to draw people in:
Make 20% COGS on the toppings you sell…
Makes it easier to give them away on “Specials”.
Large 3 topping and 10 Breadsticks for $XX.XX
Nick, what are you paying for cheese? If you are paying $2.50/LB, if you were to add 50% of your normal cheese on a 16" (in the other thread you stated you use 10 oz) it would cost you just over 78 cents. My guess is that you average paying a little less throughout the year but I’m not sure what you use. I’m not necessarily a fan of pricing individual items based upon a cost %. I like to look at the contribution margin of the individual items and look at cost % as across the whole menu. I serve 50% the original portion for extra cheese but I likely pay less for cheese than you.
If I was in your shoes, I would split the difference in serving sizes and serve one portion of extra cheese at 40% of the original portion and charge your regular topping price. This will yield a food cost % a bit high in the 36% range but will yeild a contribution margin of over over $1.10 on a 16" pizza. If this throws your whole menu food cost out of whack, then it’s time to reconsider this and other prices/portions.