I used to count paper, supplies etc apart from food, but it took a lot of time and did not provide me any useful data. As a Delco, boxes cost what they cost. The cost of cleaning supplies etc does not add up to enough to bother tracking as its own category, so we roll it all in together. That is not to say that we do not track how much we pay for these things, we do price shop them, but the variance in how much we use costs less than the time taken to track it.
So, we calculate the cost of all consumable products. That includes food, containers, supplies, condiments, cleaning supplies. If we use it up, we count it. (Boxes and containers might as well be cheese. As a delco, we have to have them) In my opinion, if you provide a container with a product, the container needs to be part of the cost model.
We start with a beginning inventory,
Add all deliveries and purchases
Subtract ending inventory
Divide the result by sales. For our business, our total cost is currently running about 29%. It used to be 28% but recent cost increases have taken a bite despite our price increase.
If you are using better products, you should be able to charge for them. The difference in your cheese price to other mozz right now is about 30 cents on a 16" pie. If you don’t think you can charge a dollar for it, I would have a close look.
Also, one of the best ideas around is to look for nickles rather than dollars. If you need to get from 35% cost down to 30% that amounts to finding a way to save 75 cents on a $15 pizza, or raise the price to $17.50 or some combination of the two.
For example, you might find a way to save 5 cents on the box, 20 cents on the cheese, 5 cents on flour and raise your price by a dollar. Do you grind/shred your own cheese? Block cheese is often 10-15 cents less than shred for the same cheese. Are you watching your portions? It is pretty easy to blow chesse cost by 35 cents per pizza when you are paying $2.70 for cheese. Have you made a prototype pizza exactly the way you want it done and weighed the portions of each item as you assemble it to see how much cheese you should be using? I see postings for flour here on the boards that indicate some people are paying $10 a bag more for flour than others are. With a 25 oz doughball for a 16", that difference comes to nearly 20 cents per pie.
Lastly, if you are using more expensive cheese (or other ingredients) be sure you are telling that story so the customer understands they are getting something special. You do need to tell them!